Beijing Olympics open

August 8, 2008

Zhang Yimou's spectacular opening ceremony unfurled five thousand years of Chinese civilization in fireworks, two thousand and eight synchronized drummers, and enormous animated scrolls before a global television audience of a billion. On the same day, Russian tanks rolled into Georgia. Michael Phelps would win eight golds and Usain Bolt would sprint into legend, but the lasting message was geopolitical: China had arrived.