Delta Airlines (not Omicron Airways [update: but we already have BA.2 right?]) asked a question on Twitter "Name a city that changed your life" and got many 'expected' answers: London, Paris, New York, Moscow, Barcelona, Istanbul and a few less obvious ones...but after a while - as you can guess by the image - the majority of answers became Wuhan, which to be fair has changed [almost] everyone's life so is clearly the winning answer.
One reply even posted this video, presumably from Wuhan Tourist Board : "Wuhan, a city by the side of Yangtze river with high risen buildings, and connected by many majestic bridges. Countless fun and adventures are hidden in this energetic city awaits for you to discover." ...not a joke, posted in Nov 2021. The video is indeed almost entirely images and film of roads, intersections, traffic and bridges! I really don't think they can expect a rush of tourism, do you?
The unexpected history lesson was - and how many people have any idea at all? - that Wuhan was strategically firebombed (a la Dresden) in December 1944; from Peter Harmsen's blog 'China in WW2'...The US Firebombing of Wuhan [Part 1] [Part 2]. Wang Shih-chieh, a Chinese politician and scholar, wrote
"regardless of cost to the city and its civilian population. Wuhan had to be sacrificed."
The raid used M-69 incendiary bombs, an 'extremely deadly cocktail of phosphorous and napalm just developed for the purpose by scientists at Harvard University'; after this "first experience with firebombing as a tactical weapon to be a successful experiment" it was later used extensively against the Japanese mainland cities. [update comment: those quotes are from Peter's blog, not that M69 Wiki page!]
Wuhan was a Japanese hub in WWII, and a launch pad for Operation Ichi-Go, which is important not so much for the eventual outcome of the war but for the turn of events that allowed the Chinese communists to gain against the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China; some have said that 'the impact Ichi-Go had on the political situation in China was as important to the post-war world order as Operation Overlord'.
Update 20:37: not - but almost - forgetting that today is one year on: "January 23rd, is the day, in 2020, when the world changed as China first implemented in Wuhan the novel public health policy that has come to define the COVID-19 pandemic."
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