Tank Man

Photo: Jeff Widener

Twenty years after Tienanmen Square, the New York Times collects the recollections of four photographers who captured the Tank Man incident.

Twenty years ago, on June 5, 1989, following weeks of huge protests in Beijing and a crackdown that resulted in the deaths of hundreds, a lone man stepped in front of a column of tanks rumbling past Tiananmen Square. The moment instantly became a symbol of the protests as well as a symbol against oppression worldwide — an anonymous act of defiance seared into our collective consciousnesses.