Forget them - the world's most glamorous celebrity couple, and undeniably the cutest, are about to hit the internet.
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couple → forget → internet
Their names are Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, and they are going on diplomatic loan to a zoo in Atlanta, Georgia, as a gift from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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they → go → Jinping
These rarest of animals arrived in America earlier this week, as a gesture of friendship during Xi's visit to the White House.
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rarest → arrive → House
In 2024, when relations with the States were at a frosty low under President Joe Biden, the last three pandas in America were summoned back to China from the same zoo.
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pandas → summon → zoo
Donald Trump will be able to crow that he has repaired the relationship.
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he → crow → relationship
In 1972 Mrs Pat Nixon, the US First Lady and her husband Richard went to dinner in Beijing... and came home with two of the black-and-white beasts.
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Nixon → go → beasts
Pat adored pandas and, on the first evening of the Nixons' historic visit to China, she said as much to Chinese leader Zhou Enlai.
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she → adore → Enlai
Two giant pandas have arrived in Atlanta from China following the country's leader Xi Jinping's White House meeting with US President Donald Trump
The 'FedEx Panda Express' Boeing 777 aircraft is seen arriving at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on September 27
He responded by presenting America with Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing (pronounced Shing-Shing), whose names mean Darling Girl and Twinkling Star.
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names → arrive → Girl
The US gave Beijing Zoo a pair of musk oxen named Milton and Matilda, which didn't have quite the same cachet.
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which → give → cachet
The President's wife was so excited to see the pandas that she attended their arrival at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington and watched in delight as they nibbled on honeybread toast.
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they → see → toast
'I think panda-monium is going to break out right here at the zoo.'
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monium → think → zoo
This sense of giddy joy the animals created did not go unnoticed back in China.
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animals → create → China
The Communist government, which until then had been largely indifferent to its daxiongmao or 'giant cat bears', began to realise that they represented an invaluable and unique resource.
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they → begin → resource
Put bluntly, the West loved giant pandas – and China had the monopoly.
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China → put → monopoly
At first, Zhou Enlai's regime was carried away by the possibilities.
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regime → carry → possibilities
The UK, Spain, West Germany, Japan, Mexico and France were all wooed with gifts of pandas.
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UK → woo → pandas
But within a decade, the Chinese began to feel they were squandering their capital.
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they → begin → capital
Pandas ceased to be presents and became a form of credit, at a high rate of interest.
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Pandas → cease → interest
Zoos must now pay as much as a million dollars (about £750,000) a year for the privilege of looking after one.
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Zoos → pay → one
First Lady Pat Nixon is seen at a ceremony at The National Zoo in Washington, D.C in 1972 visiting Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing the Giant Pandas gifted to the United States by China
Wearing a panda pin on her lapel, she declared that 'Panda-monium' had broken out at the Zoo
The first example of panda diplomacy was a direct result of First Lady Pat Nixon's encounter with Giant Pandas at the Peking Zoo (she is seen admiring a panda at The National Zoo)
If they establish a successful breeding programme, which almost never happens, the babies are automatically Chinese property.
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babies → see → programme
And if a panda dies and the zoo is held responsible, fines of up to $500,000 are due.
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fines → die → 500,000
But when the West first went panda-mad, a century ago, attitudes in both China and the US were much less sentimental... and interest in conservation was non-existent.
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interest → go → conservation
The animals were unknown to Americans and Europeans until the Catholic missionary Pere Armand David saw a panda skin on display in a house in 1869.
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missionary → see → 1869
He paid for one to be captured and killed, and sent its corpse to Paris to be examined by scientists.
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one → pay → scientists
An expedition to China in the early 20th century managed to capture a wild baby panda, but the explorers had no idea how to feed it and it died within days.
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it → manage → days
In 1929, two hunters – Ted Roosevelt and his brother Kermit, the sons of former President Teddy Roosevelt – set out with a different aim: to be the first Westerners to kill an adult giant panda.
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hunters → set → panda
The historian Nathalia Holt, whose bestseller The Beast in the Clouds told their story last year, notes that in a previous expedition to central Asia in 1925, the Roosevelt boys killed more than 2,000 animals.
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boys → tell → animals
They braved the bandit country of Sichuan province in south-west China, where feuding warlords sometimes laid waste to entire villages.
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warlords → brave → villages
In places, Ted wrote in their joint memoir, Trailing The Giant Panda, 'the scene was as desolate as the devastated area in France' where he had fought in the trenches.
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he → write → trenches
The pandas boarded the chartered flight at 2am, kicking off their 10-year stay in the US
A farewell ceremony is held for giant pandas Ping Ping and Fu Shuang at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding before they boarded their flight to Atlanta
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they → board → Atlanta
After months of trekking, they reached the Yehli region where local hunters agreed to help them find their quarry.
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them → reach → quarry
Setting out the next morning, they walked along snowy tracks for two-and-a-half hours until they found a clearing with distinctive green droppings that contained semi-digested bamboo.
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that → set → bamboo
When a panda peered at them from a thicket, the brothers took aim and fired together.
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brothers → peer → aim
Neither managed to kill it with their first or second shots, and it dragged itself 75 yards into the brush before they were able to find it and finish it off.
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they → manage → it
The Roosevelts' tradition was to take their kills back to their camp and share the meat with locals.
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tradition → take → locals
The villagers, though, were horrified at what these Westerners had done.
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Westerners → horrify → what
They refused to touch its body.
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They → refuse → body
Back in the US, the Roosevelts were celebrated as heroes and gave lectures to packed halls.
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Roosevelts → celebrate → halls
In Chicago, 1,500 people without tickets were turned away.
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people → turn → tickets
It was partly this hullabaloo that inspired the socialite Ruth Harkness and her playboy husband William to make their own panda hunting expedition to China five years later.
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that → inspire → China
…and 75 more, not listed.
The Aporia
