The ABC news report of the day gravely intoned about the massive demonstrations in Bejing’s Tiananmen Square, showing footage of crowds holding banners, chanting, marching hand-in-hand. They were there to commemorate Hu Yaobang, a reformer in the Chinese Communist Party, who died of natural causes six days prior, and to express their dissatisfaction with the oppressive regime.

On this day, April 21, the day before Yaobang’s official state memorial, student protests in Tiananmen Square began. They spread to universities across Beijing, then across the nation, as China declared martial law and moved in troops.

By June the protest easily became the biggest challenge to the rule of the Communist in their 49-year history. Protests intensified with the scheduled arrival of Soviet leader and reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, and not taking any chances, the Chinese moved in to clear the square by force. The Tiananmen Square massacre became the iconic event in the history for the fight for freedom — one that is echoed today by the fighters in the Arab Spring.