1 . In 1937, the aggression of the Japanese army brought disaster to China’s three great universities: Peking University and Tsinghua University were occupied by Japanese troops, while Nankai University was completely destroyed by bombing. To save their educational and intellectual heritage, the three universities joined together in Kunming as National Southwest Associated University, otherwise known as Lianda.

Professors and students alike in the three universities made an epic journey over a distance of more than 2,000 kilometres, most of them on foot. Their bed was the dusty road and their roof was the open sky, often lit up by exploding Japanese bombs. Conditions were little better once they reached the remote and mountainous south-west part of China.

However, despite the immense hardships and the daunting challenges, it was right in this place, over period of eight long years, that the nation’s intellectual heritage was not only guarded but fortified by the passion and belief of the worthy academic s of Lianda.

With the country at war, students at Lianda were not going to shirk their duty. Driven by a sense of commitment, a great many joined the army to resist the Japanese invaders and defend the honour of the nation. In fact, Lianda provided the largest number of student-soldiers from any campus in China. Of the thousands of college students from all over China who served as interpreters, one tenth were from Lianda, including the well-known translators Zha Liangzheng and Xu Yuanchong.

A product of the war, Lianda is now physically gone. But it has become the crowning glory of China’s modern universities, not only because of its prominent professors and talented students, but also because of the school’s strong spirit of perseverance and dedication.

More than eighty years on, the priceless contribution of Lianda still needs to be reaffirmed. It has become part of the collective memory of the Chinese nation, with its spirit as the blueprint for all universities in China in the modern era.

3 . The first newspaper was written by hand and put up on walls in public places. The earliest daily newspaper was started in Rome in 59 BC. In the 700s the world’s first printed newspaper was published. Europe didn’t have a regularly printed newspaper until 1609, when one was started in Germany.

The first regularly published newspaper in English was printed in Amsterdam in 1620. In 1621, an English newspaper was started in London and was published once a week. The first daily English newspaper was the daily curtent, which came out in March 1702.

In 1690, Benjamin Harris printed the first American newspaper in Boston. But not long after it was first published, the government stopped the paper. In 1704, John Campbell started the Boston Newspaper, the first newspaper published daily in the American colonies (殖民地). By 1760, the colonies had more than thirty daily newspapers. There are now about 1,800 daily papers in the United States.

Today, as a group, newspapers in English have the largest circulation (发行量) in the world. But the largest circulation for a newspaper is that of the Japanese newspaper asahi shimbun. It sells more than eleven million copies every year.

4 . Nottingham Goose (鹅) Fair started on the first Thursday in October and lasted 3 days. However, nowadays you won’t find any geese there.

The fair opened at 12:00 on the Thursday by the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, but it has an interesting and shocking history.

For starters, it wasn’t always the largest fair in the area. And the main fair for the people of Nottingham in terms of trade and economy was the Lenton Fair held at Lenton Priory.

In the Middle Ages the Lenton Fair overshadowed (使显得逊色) the Goose Fair in size and importance. Harrisons Calendar of Fairs for 1587 mentions the Lenton Fair but not the Goose Fair. However, the Goose Fair competed with its local competitors and every year over 20,000 geese from the Fens in Lincolnshire arrived to be sold to provide the traditional Michaelmas dish.

It wasn’t just for geese either. All kinds of things were sold at the Goose Fair: sheep, horses and cattle were also sold.

The fair has been under threat of closure many times over the years. In 1764 they actually had cheese riots (暴乱) due to an increase of a third on the price of cheese compared with the previous year, which resulted in an attack on the stallholders (摊主) at the fair.

By 1880 the fair was reduced to a three-day event, which started on the first Thursday of October. In 1928 the fair was moved from the market square to its present site in the forest which is far away from the city centre. Despite attempts throughout its history to prevent the fair, the income from rents paid by the stallholders is financially beneficial to the local government. So regardless of the cheese riots and the various attempts to prohibit it, Nottingham Goose Fair has survived to celebrate over eight centuries of fun.