The opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games at the National Stadium in Beijing on Friday. BEIJING — An ecstatic China, an ancient nation so determined to be a modern power, finally got its Olympic moment on Friday night. Olympics Tracker Follow the schedules of your favorite sports, day by day and event by event. With world leaders watching from inside the latticed shell of the National Stadium, the 2008 Beijing Olympics began with an opening ceremony of soaring fireworks, lavish spectacle and a celebration of Chinese culture and international good will. At 8 p.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month in the year 2008 — eight being a lucky number in China — the world looked toward Beijing and the 91,000 people inside the National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest. The global television audience was estimated to surpass...
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