Marco Polo Bridge

This guide to the Marco Polo Bridge in Beijing turns on the night of July 7, 1937, when Japanese troops holding drills near Wanping claimed a soldier named Shimura Kikujiro had vanished and demanded to search the walled town, a demand a Chinese commander named Ji Xingwen refused. You'll hear how hours of standoff unfolded at this exact crossing, even though the missing man had already returned to his own lines. The guide also traces Marco Polo's own passage through here centuries earlier, and the carved stone lions still lining the railings.