To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and present a panoramic view of the country's great journey, the 24-episode documentary "On the Road" has been released with focus on the great achievements and valuable experiences of the people of all ethnic groups in the socialist revolution, construction and reform over the past 70 years. It also recounts the touching stories and important events of the country since 1949.
The 13th episode of the series features China's mega projects. From Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, to the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the Three Gorges Dam, manned space flight program… the Chinese people's spirit of fighting and pioneering will be remembered by history.
On August 8, 2008, China attracted world's attention with the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympic Games held at the National Stadium in Beijing.
The stadium was built by 110,000 tons of steel, equivalent to a sixth of the country's annual steel output in the early days of the PRC. Nowadays also as a popular scenic spot in Beijing, the stadium stands as testament to China's soaring progress.
On July 1, 2006, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was opened after six years of construction involving a 100,000 workforce that performed feats of great heroism in the extreme conditions on the snow-covered plateau.
The 2,000-kilometer-long railway is the world's highest and longest plateau railroad connecting Xining City in Qinghai Province and Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region. It has transported a total of 182 million passengers and 552 million tons of goods in the past 12 years, according to the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company.
The Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest water control project, started construction on December 14, 1994. It's also the greatest mass engineering project ever undertaken in Chinese history.
With an inflow of 51,000 cubic meters and an outflow of 40,000 cubic meters per second, the dam plays a significant role in preventing flooding, generating power and improving shipping and water resource management.
As we see the grand spectacle of the Three Gorges Dam today, we should never forget the sacrifice made by 1.3 million people who had to resettle elsewhere.
China's spaceflight engineers started to achieve the nation's space dream since 1956. In November 1999, China launched its first unmanned experimental spacecraft, a fruit realized after nearly a decade of intense efforts by more than 110 academies, 3,000 supporting companies and institutions, and 100,000 people.
Four years later, China sent the Shenzhou-5 spaceship, and space welcomed its first Chinese visitor – Yang Liwei. China had become the third country in the world to launch a human being into orbit.
Since then, more space feats have been made, including the country's first spacewalk, the first lecture from space, space stations… China has become a space-faring nation.