History
The Shiji mentions the "Qilian mountains" together with Dunhuang as the homeland of the Yuezhi. A scholar however has suggested that the name here refers to the mountains now known as Tian Shan, 1,500 km to the west, and Dunhuang may be the Dunhong mountain. Qilian (祁连) is said to be as a Xiongnu word meaning "sky" (Chinese: 天) by Yan Shigu, a Tang Dynasty commentator on the Shiji.
The mountain range was formerly known in European languages as Richthofen Range after Ferdinand von Richthofen, who was the Red Baron's explorer-geologist uncle.
The mountain range gives its name to Qinghai's Qilian County.
Read more about this topic: Qilian Mountains
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)