Sheapard T'Soni

The Tiananmen Square protests, known as the June Fourth Incident in China (Chinese: 六四事件; pinyin: li\xf9s\xec sh\xecji\xe0n), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre (Chinese: 天安门大屠杀; pinyin: Tiān'ānm\xe9n d\xe0 t\xfashā), troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military's advance into Tiananmen Square. The protests started on April 15 and were forcibly suppressed on June 4 when the government declared martial law and sent the People's Liberation Army to occupy parts of central Beijing. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded.[2][3][4][5][6][7] The popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests is sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement (Chinese: 八九民运; pinyin: Bājiǔ m\xedny\xf9n) or the Tiananmen Square Incident (Chinese: 天安门事件; pinyin: Tiān'ānm\xe9n sh\xecji\xe0n).