Mao Zedong proclaimed the formation of the People's Republic of China on this day in 1949. There's more in the Stuff You Missed in History Class episodes "The Great Leap Forward" (September 1, 2014), "The Great Famine" (September 8, 2014), "China's Cultural Revolution: Red Guard and Purges" (September 15, 2014), and "China's Cultural Revolution: Rewriting a Nation" (September 17, 2014).