Tiananmen Square

Bodies of protestors shot by the Chinese army piled up in the corner of a Capital hospital after the Chinese army occupation of Tiananmen Square on the June 4th, 1989.

  Tank Man. For 25 years, foreign reporters have sought to identify the brave, solitary figure in the most memorable photo to emerge from China’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. And still, the mystery endures. Shortly after noon on June 5, 1989, the day after troops stormed through Beijing and into the square to crush the student-led political uprising that had paralyzed and electrified the capital for weeks, a lone man with shopping bags in both hands briefly stopped a column of oncoming tanks on the Avenue of Eternal Peace. The lead vehicle halted. It moved right and left to avoid the defenseless man. Each time, he adjusted his position to remain in the tank’s path. Finally, he shifted the bags to one hand, jumped onto the tank and appeared to talk to its driver. The standoff, just east of the square, was captured by newspaper photographers and TV news crews. The standoff lasted but a few minutes, but was so tense with drama that witnesses recall it feeling like an eternity.

Photographer Jeff Widener, whose photo of the incident is the best known, was working then for the Associated Press. He told McClatchy News Service this year that he has "always felt 'Tank Man' was like the unknown soldier. He will always symbolize freedom and democracy." No one knows for sure the man’s name, or whether he’s dead or alive. Still, Time magazine named the man one of the century's top 20 revolutionaries, whose "moment of self-transcendence [was seen] by more people than ever laid eyes on Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and James Joyce combined." But it’s unclear whether Tank Man has ever been aware what an enduring symbol he became, because in China, the image remains barred. (The identity of the tank driver, too, remains unknown to the public.) http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-tiananmen-square-tank-man-20140603-story.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/b/3962197d-1aef-471c-9cfc-5d6f5446bb5c Intervirew with Jeff Widener