The Associated Press reports:

Ceremonies are taking place to mark the 74th anniversary of the Japanese army's brutal rampaging of China's wartime capital, known in the West as the "Rape of Nanking."

Historians say the 1937 massacre in the eastern city now known as Nanjing resulted in the slaughter of at least 150,000 civilians. China puts the number killed at 300,000, making it one of the worst atrocities of the World War II era.