In 1989, pro-democracy students, intellectuals, and activists began staging protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, culminating on June when the Chinese government sent in tanks to break up the protests…an action which led to photographer Jeff Widener’s world-famous "Tank Man" image of an unknown, unarmed man halting a column of four tanks simply by standing in front of them and refusing to move. The number of civilians and protesters killed or injured in the crackdown is still unknown, but some estimates rise into the thousands.
