Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City

We are posting information about the interesting places we visit in China for our boys school classes. We hope that this will be educational and a fun way to learn about China. This post is for the boys classes.

Today the boys (in spirit) visited Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing China! It is named after Tiananmen Gate, which means gate of heaven's pacification. It is the largest city square the world and is of great cultural significance in China. It is also the site of several important events in Chinese history.

If you look closely behind the boys you can see the picture of Mao Zedong above the Tenanamen Gate. Mao was a Chinese revolutionary and established the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. He held power in China until his death in 1976.

In 1989 there were protests in Tenanamen Square let by students and intellectuals. These were mainly non violent protests led by Beijing students to encourage continued economic reform and liberalization. It eventually evolved into a mass movement for political reform. The movement lasted seven weeks The government steped in to stop the protests on June 4, 1989. Tanks and troops of the People's Liberation Army moved into the streets of Beijing, using live fire while proceeding to Tiananmen Square to clear the area of protestors.

The boys also visited The Forbidden city. This is a huge complex where for almost 500 years China's emperors and their families lived. It has many beautiful brightly colored and ornate buildings where emperors did their work and met with forign dignitaries.