People of San Francisco and visitors now have a place to learn and study the largely forgotten history of Chinese workers who helped build the US’ first transcontinental (横贯大陆的) railroad.

The Chinese Railroad Workers History Center, near the southern entrance of San Francisco’s Chinatown, is expected to serve as a “gathering place” for people to learn about Chinese Americans’ heritage (遗产) in the US, according to the founder, Florence Fang, a Chinese community leader in the Bay Area. “The center’s purpose is to remember the Chinese railroad workers’ contribution to this country. The goal is to give voice to the voiceless, and the spirit is to remember the past and inspire the future,” said Fang.

The building of the Transcontinental Railroad, originally known as the Pacific Railroad, was completed on May 10, 1869．It was considered one of the most remarkable engineering achievements of the 19th century. The railroad greatly changed the nation as it not only expanded the American economy but also increased national confidence.

The Chinese workers made up more than 80 percent of the railroad workforce. “What is important to remember is the sweat and the tears and sometimes the lives of the Chinese workers who built the most treacherous, difficult part of the Transcontinental Railroad,” said California Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, “Now it will go down in history along with so many other unbelievably important contributions of Chinese Americans.”

Kounalaki s and other elected officials in the state and the city joined community leaders on Wednesday at the center to commemorate the 154th anniversary of the completion of the railroad and pay tribute (致敬) to the Chinese workers.

“This center joins several other institutions in San Francisco, like the Chinese Historical Society and the Chinese Culture Center, to attract visitors and to teach Chinese American history and culture,” said Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

“It comes at a critical time for us. It comes as Chinatown and the home of San Francisco have experienced three very difficult years, Chinatown in particular, not only with the economic harm, but with the rise of Asian hate,” he said. “The center will help teach future generations and make San Francisco proud,” said Peskin. “It will help promote the economy of Chinatown.”

Dutch beachcomber (海滩拾荒者) Wim Kruiswijk has accumulated a collection of 1,200 messages-in-bottles over the course of nearly 4 decades and has responded to almost all of them,

68-year-old Kruiswijk says that his unusual hobby began in 1983 when he found three drift bottles (漂流瓶) on his local beach, each containing letters and return addresses. He wrote to all three addresses and was surprised to receive responses from each one. It was this experience that aroused his interest in hunting and collecting messages in bottles, and he hasn’t stopped looking for them since.

“I find my messages in bottles on the beach of Zandvoort, where I live, and on the Dutch Islands,” Kruiswijk recently told Great Big Story. “Messages in bottles is slow mail. It takes you days, or weeks, or months to find a bottle. ”

In the early years, Kruiswijk would find as many as 50 bottles a year, but since 2000 that has slowed to around 20-30 finds, mainly due to beach cleaning efforts. He believes that the rise of the Internet has also played a role in the diminishing number of messages in bottles, telling Dutch news site PZC, “I used to get a response at half the bottle messages that I answered. Now that’s less; many people want ‘instant satisfaction’.”

Throwing a message in a bottle out into the sea is a longstanding human tradition dating back to the time of the Greek philosopher Theophrastus, about 310 BC，who used the bottles to study water currents. Scientists still apply the method to this day, as a means to help researchers develop ocean circulation maps, and to crowdsource scientific studies of ocean currents.

In the past bottles have also been used to send distress messages from sailors in trouble. They also have been used for memorial tributes, or to send loved ones’ ashes on a final journey. One of the more common uses though is just to send invitations out to prospective pen pals, a quaint notion in these modern times, but, as Kruiswijk so clearly shows, an effective one.

At one time,   the Iroquois Indians lived along the lakes and rivers of the northern part of New York.The five tribes (部落) — the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga,   and Seneca — fought with each other for years.

In the late 1500s,   a wise Iroquois man named Dekanawida had a dream.In his dream,   he saw the end of the Indian wars.An Onondaga chief named Hiawatha agreed to help Dekanawida bring peace to the area.Hiawatha traveled from tribe to tribe, trying to persuade the tribal leaders to unite in peace.The leaders realized that if they stopped fighting,   they could become a powerful force in the Northeast area.

The leaders of the five tribes set up a league, called the Iroquois League,   which brought all five tribes together.They set up a kind of democratic (民主的)   government in which each tribe had an equal voice.A Great Council was formed.Forty­nine chiefs from every tribe were appointed to the Council.The members were all men,   but they were chosen by the elder women of the tribes.The Council worked together to solve big issues for the league, while each tribe remained self­governing.

In 1722,   the Iroquois League increased from five to six tribes when the Tuscarora tribe joined them.The Iroquois League controlled the fur trade in the area.They controlled land from Canada to Kentucky.The Iroquois League remained powerful for over 200 years.

Then during the War of Independence, most of the Iroquois League sided with the British.After the Americans defeated the British, many Iroquois villages were destroyed.The Iroquois were forced to move and live on reservations (印第安人居留地)．This caused the Iroquois League to become less powerful.

History shows that the writers of the United States Constitution used some of the same ideas as the Iroquois   League.One section of the   Iroquois Constitution is entitled   “Rights of the People”   and might be compared to the   “Bill of Rights”．The Iroquois   League’s   constitution   is   often   called America’s first democracy.