Tank Man stood before a column of tanks in Beijing
On this day · 5 June 1989
One unarmed man, two shopping bags, and a line of stopped tanks became the century's most enduring image of defiance.
On June 5, 1989, the morning after the Chinese army’s deadly crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, a lone man in a white shirt walked into the middle of Chang’an Avenue in Beijing. Carrying what looked like two shopping bags, he planted himself directly in the path of an advancing column of Type 59 tanks.
The lead tank tried to steer around him. He stepped back into its way, again and again, until the convoy ground to a halt. At one point he appeared to climb onto the tank and speak to the crew before being pulled aside by bystanders.
A single figure, armed with nothing, forced an entire armored column to stop.
Photographers watching from the Beijing Hotel captured the standoff, and the images were smuggled out to a global audience. The man’s identity and fate have never been confirmed. Known simply as Tank Man, or the Unknown Protester, he endures as one of history’s most recognized symbols of nonviolent resistance against state power.
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