Dear readers, I am sure the scene of the grand celebrations held in Tiananmen Square two weeks ago is still lingering in your mind. Here, we once again congratulate the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on its 70th anniversary!

Seventy years ago, shortly after the founding of the PRC, the then National Chongqing University was renamed Chongqing University (CQU). Time flies, CQU celebrated its 90th birthday on October 12, last Saturday. As the result of the collaboration between Chongqing University and Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, our Galileo center was honored to witness this historic moment. On this special occasion, we’d like to introduce this excellent university to you all.

On October 12, 1929, the opening ceremony of the two preparatory classes was held in Yangjia garden, Caiyuanba, marking the establishment of Chongqing University. The first President was Liu Xiang, the then warlord who ruled Sichuan at that time and Shapingba was chosen to be the permanent site of CQU. Four years later, the first teaching building “College of Science Building” was built in Shapingba Campus. During the war of resistance against Japanese aggression, many universities moved to Chongqing and thus a large number of talented people were gathered here. As a result, both education and scientific researches have gained fruitful results in Chongqing. More than 100 teachers and students who taught or studied in Chongqing became academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

After the Liberation, due to the needs of the country, CQU has been through a wide range of adjustments and was identified as a national key university in 1960. Since 1978, the development of CQU has been on the right track and achieved important results. For starters, it became a national key comprehensive university directly under the administration of the Ministry of Education. Later in 1996, it became one of the first batch of universities under the “211 project” of China. In 2000, Chongqing University, Chongqing Jianzhu University and Chongqing Architectural College were merged, and one year later, Chongqing University became the key university of “project 985”. Since then, CQU has won many honors successively, and set up three Confucius institutes overseas: the Confucius institute in Betong, Thailand; the Confucius institute in Pisa, Italy; and La Trobe University in Australia.

On October 12, 2019, CQU held a series of celebration activities. Among them, the Commemorative Celebration on the Wind and Rain (“Fengyu”) playground were attended by a number of well-known alumni and representatives from all walks of life. The development history of CQU was reviewed and the future direction was planned on the event. Besides this, teacher representatives from all time were invited to the stage to accept salute from their outstanding students.

On that very day, many alumni returned back to CQU and took photos everywhere. The Chongqing University International Culture Festival was also held in the Unity (“Tuanjie”) Playground, where students from more than 50 countries and regions presented their local Culture to the guests. At the opening ceremony, the principal of CQU gave a welcome speech and awarded the cultural festival the emblem flag. After that, Chinese and foreign students performed tai chi, recited poems and sang “Auld Lang Syne” together. Students from Italy put on their national costumes and demonstrated their native culture to the guests with pictures, food and other props.

We wish Chongqing University again a happy 90th birthday!