Tank Man is the nickname of an anonymous man who stood in front of a column of Chinese Type 59 tanks the morning after the Chinese military forcibly removed protestors from in and around Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. The man achieved widespread international recognition due to the videotape and photographs taken of the incident.
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese, were a series of popular demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing beginning on 15 April 1989. The protests ended with military suppression on 4 June.
In the late 1970s, the Chinese leadership of Deng Xiaoping abandoned Maoist-style planned collectivist economics, and embraced market-oriented reforms. Due to the rapid pace of change, by the late 1980s, grievances over inflation, limited career prospects for students, and corruption of the party elite were growing rapidly. Communist governments were also losing legitimacy around the world, particularly in Eastern Europe. In April 1989, triggered by the death of deposed Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, a liberal reformer, mass gatherings and protests took place in and around Tiananmen Square. At its height, some half a million protesters assembled there. The largely student-run demonstrations called for continued economic reform, freedom of the press, accountability from officials, and political liberalization. Peaceful protests also occurred in other cities, such as Shanghai and Wuhan, while looting and rioting broke out in Xi'an and Changsha.