Venetian merchant who said he spent 17 years in China in the service of 忽必烈 (Kublai Khan). The book of his travels gave Europe its first detailed picture of China.
Marco Polo was one of the first Europeans to travel to China.
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English calls a bridge in Beijing the Marco Polo Bridge because his book praised it, but in Chinese it is 卢沟桥. The 1937 battle there that began the war with Japan is the 卢沟桥事变, or 七七事变 after its date, 7 July.
