C90

Tomorrow is the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. The first official meeting (Congress) took place on 1 July 1921 in this building on Xingye Road in Shanghai. I went past it the other day. It's now a small museum, ironically on the edge of a particularly swish, uber-free-market shopping precinct. From humble beginnings / who would have believed etc...

So, a big party (80m members) needs a big party - and it got one at the Great Hall of the People, with Hu Jintao and (just back from Britain) Wen Jiabao in attendance. You can see a bit of it here. 

Interestingly (well, slightly), next year will be the 100th anniversary of, if not the Conservative Party (which goes back donkeys years), then a little known but formal merger between the Conservatives and the Liberal Unionist Party in May 1912. Not to be confused with the current merger.