Friday, June 04, 2010

Pop History Moment: Showdown in Tiananmen Square

On this day in 1989 the so-called People's Republic of China crushed a pro-democracy uprising in Tiananmen Square, shooting and killing hundreds of its unarmed people - many of them students - including this lone man who stared down the tanks...


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Sources differ as to his identity and his fate, but almost from the moment Jeff Widener's shutter clicked, this iconic hero and his small moment of defiance came to encapsulate not only the entire movement but in a way the futility of that movement as well. Originally known as The Unknown Rebel or less poetically as 'Tank Man', Widener's is just one of the cameras who captured this moment, but seeing as he was then working for the Associated Press, his version has understandably become the most widespread.
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