1 The photograph captured the attention of the world. On June 5, 1989, a lone man stood in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square. His act of peaceful defiance was captured on film and later made headlines after he slipped back into anonymity. There is a story behind the photograph. Chinese citizens assembled in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China as a protest. What started small, a few workers and students, grew into over one million people who gathered for seven weeks in the spring of 1989. The gathering was mostly peaceful, until the early hours of June 4. The government struck back against the protestors. Government tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square killing hundreds of workers, students, doctors and children. On the next day, the lone man stood up to the tanks. Dressed simply in slacks and a white shirt, carrying what seemed to be shopping bags, he stood in the way of 18 tanks. The lead tank swerved to go around him; he moved to block it. Then he climbed on the tank and spoke briefly with the soldiers. As soon as he climbed down, onlookers pulled the peaceful protestor to safety. There have been discussions of who the anonymous man was, but we may never know for sure. However, his peaceful resistance is an image that will live in the memory of the world: One lone man courageously blocking a line of tanks. image/jpeg Tanks_bus.jpg 240487 2006-08-21T10:49:24-06:00 10 image/jpeg Tank_14x48.jpg 259594 Courage application/x-pdf TANKS.pdf 4843797 image/jpeg TANKS_thumb.jpg 7450 25 image/jpeg TANKS.jpg 294436 2009-11-18T21:17:54-07:00