History
The initial surname Chen was from Gui (媯, Gūi), which was an ancient East Asia surname of descendants of Emperor Shun, who was one of the Three August Ones and Five Emperors. When King Wu of Zhou established the Zhou Dynasty, he gave the Land of Chen to Shun's descendants to establish their own state. To show his respect for Emperor Shun, the new state, which was also named Chen, was one of the Three Guest States of Zhou (Chinese: 三恪; pinyin: Sān Kè), which meant this nation was not a subordinate, but a guest of Zhou. However, the Chen state was occupied by Chu after the 10th century BC. Since then, the people of this state began to use Chen as their surname.
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589), Chen Baxian established the Chen Dynasty (557-589), the fourth and the last of the Southern dynasties in East Asia, which was eventually destroyed by the Sui Dynasty.
Read more about this topic: Chen (surname)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The History of the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in it, for they are periods of harmony—periods when the antithesis is in abeyance.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)