History
Hailar was founded as a Chinese fort in 1734, and during the administration of the Republic of China it was the capital city of Xing'an Province. It is now a centre of agricultural production on the Chinese Eastern RR. Once known as Hulun, Hailar today is a relatively small but thriving modern industrial city of around 300,000, its population having soared from an estimated 20,000 in the mid-20th century.
It was occupied and fortified by the Japanese during their expansion into Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and China proper during the 1930s until the end of the Second World War in August 1945, and perhaps the oldest building in Hailar that stands today was left by the occupying forces. When the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, Hailar was the scene of a bitter struggle in the wider campaign to push Japanese forces out of Manchuria and northeast China and Korea (see Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945)).
Read more about this topic: Hailar District
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)