  In ancient times, China made great contributions to world civilization and in
particular to mathematics. However, modern sciences including mathematics came
to China rather too late. The first Chinese university was founded in 1895. The
first mathematics department in China was formally opened at the university
only in 1913. At the beginning of the twentieth century, some Chinese went to
Europe, the United States of America and Japan for higher education in modern
mathematics and returned to China as the pioneer generation. They created
mathematics departments at the Chinese universities and sowed the seeds of
modern mathematics in China. In 1930s, when a dozen of Chinese universities
already had mathematics departments, several leading mathematicians from Europe
and USA visited China, including Wilhelm Blaschke, George D. Birkhoff, William
F. Osgood, Norbert Wiener and Jacques Hadamard. Their visits not only had
profound impact on the mathematical development in China, but also became
social events sometimes. This paper tells the history of their visits.
