The large-scale exhibition Road to Rejuvenation, which was first staged in 2007 and was again shown to celebrate the 60th anniversary of New China's founding in late-2009, will reopen at the National Museum of China on March 1.

The exhibition, which showcases the ups and downs the country has faced on its road to national revival since 1840, will become a permanent display at the newly renovated museum.

While Road to Rejuvenation offers a narrative of China's pre-modern and contemporary history, its counterpart, Ancient China, reveals the development of previous ages.

The combined exhibitions "are intended to arouse a sense of national pride among visitors", museum dean Lu Zhangshen says.

Featuring more than 1,150 important artifacts and 980 photographs, the five-chapter Road to Rejuvenation exhibition showcases the nation's triumphant emergence and social advancement over the past six decades.

It also takes viewers back some 170 years, when the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) began to decline because of isolationism, backwardness, corruption and invasions by Western powers.

The exhibition begins with the Opium War in 1840 and chronicles the country's subsequent descent from a world power to a semi-feudal society in the mid-19th century and then, a semi-colonial country a century ago.

The show also depicts the numerous trials faced, and experiments attempted, along the road to national salvation and rejuvenation.

Visitors can gain a deeper understanding of the ceaseless struggles to win freedom, democracy and independence at the beginning of the 20th century and the twisting trajectory of socialist construction in New China's early years.

The show wraps up by portraying China's advancements since the opening-up and reform of the late-1970s.

Some of the most recent historical events featured include the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games; the successful launches and retrievals of the Shenzhou spacecraft; the Wenchuan earthquake relief efforts; and China's countermeasures to effectively combat the global economic downturn.

Many of the exhibits are on public view for the first time, the museum's deputy director Huang Zhenchun says.

Among the most eye-catching relics is one of the six surviving copies of the first Chinese-language edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, translated by veteran linguist and translator Chen Wangdao (1891-1977); the first national flag raised on Oct 1, 1949, during New China's founding ceremony; and an exquisite throne that served as a symbol of the feudal power wielded by the Qing Dynasty emperors.

Other highlights include an old printing machine used to produce brochures promulgating new ideas from the West during the 1919 May Fourth movement; a wooden raft that People's Liberation Army soldiers used to cross the Yangtze River and liberate such cities as Jiangsu's provincial capital Nanjing and Shanghai from Kuomintang rule in the late 1940s; the Shenzhou V spacecraft; and props used at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games' Opening Ceremony.

The museum has been closed for the past three years for renovation and expansion.

Its official reopening on April 1 will also feature a show entitled The Art of the Enlightenment, presented in cooperation with three major German museums.