Some half a million years ago,Beijing man lived in Zhoukoudian,in the southwestern suburbs of Beijing. The climate of that time was warmer and more humid than it is today. Forests and lakes in the area supported large numbers of living creatures. The fossil remains of Beijing man,his stone tools and evidence of use of fire,as well as later tools of 18 000 years ago,bone needles and article of adornment from the age of Upper Cave Man are the earliest cultural relics on record in China today.
大約50萬年前,北京人居住在北京西南郊的周口店。那時的氣候比現在的更溫暖更潮濕,當地的森林湖泊也促進了大量生物的成長。北京人的化石遺骸,他們的石頭工具和用火痕跡,以及后來大約18 000年前用過的工具,還有山頂洞人時期用過的骨針和裝飾品都是中國如今史料記載的最早的文化遺物。
A city plan was first laid out in the Yuan Dynasty. Yet only after extensive reconstruction during the Ming and Qing,did the city emerge as an architectural masterpiece fit to serve as the capital of the Chinese empire. A north-south axis bisects the city with the Imperial Palace was known as Danei(The Great within).
北京的城市規劃始于元朝。然而,直到明朝和清朝年間人興上木、整修重建之后,城市才初現出適合成為中國王朝首都的杰出建筑。一道南北向的中心軸把城市一分為二,其皇宮被稱作大內。

In the Ming Dynasty,it was renamed the Forbidden City(Zijincheng),and more recently it has come to be called the Palace Museum(Gugong Bowuyuan).Designed with thousands of halls and gates arranged symmetrically around a north-south axis,its dimensions and luxuriance are a fitting symbol of the power and greatness of traditional China.
到了明朝,皇宮被更名為紫禁城國。近年來它又開始被稱為故宮博物院,圍繞著一個南北向的中心軸,數千個廳堂、門落對稱地排列著,其宏大的規模和奢華的裝飾都體現了古代中國權力和威嚴的象征。
After the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1911,China fell prey to the Northern Warlords and Kuomintang,Beijing suffered the same fate as the rest of China,hobbling along like an old camel without a sense of direction. The Chinese People's Liberation Army formally entered Beijing on January 31 1949,opening a new chapter in the long history of the city. It was in Tian'anmen Square on October 1st,1949,that Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China,with Beijing as its capital.
1911年清朝崩潰之后,中國又落人北方軍閥和國民黨的虎口。與中國其他地方一樣,北京也慘遭厄運,像一只沒頭沒腦的老駱駝一樣蹣跚前行。1949年1月31日,中國人民解放軍正式進人北京,在城市悠久的史冊上翻開了新的篇章。1949年10月1日,毛澤東主席在天安門廣場鄭重宣告了中華人民共和國的成立,并以北京為首都。
來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/menu/201504/372562.shtml