Student demands for democracy and freedom in Peking (Beijing), China, created one of the most dramatic events of the 1980s. On April 22, 1989, thousands of university students marched through the city demanding free speech and other democratic reforms. Four days later the government warned the demonstrators that force might be used against them. Within a few days there were more than 100,000 people camped in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In a crisis atmosphere, government officials appeared on television, negotiating with student leaders. Television studios were free to broadcast the events, and news reporters from all parts of the world roamed the streets to gather information. A new spirit of openness seemed to have come to China, but it was not to last. The students kept up their protest for several weeks. On the morning of May 30 they erected at 30-foot- (9 meter-) high replica of the Statue of Liberty in the square. By early June it was becoming apparent that the government would not let the protest go on much longer. The army was called in, and armored units from distant regions of China appeared in different sectors of the city. Then, on the night of June 3, the troops moved into the square to wrest control of it from the students. Hundreds of students were killed by military vehicles or gunfire, as the world watched the sequence of events on television. The Tiananmen Square massacre marked the beginning of a hard-line Communist crack-down. Many thousands of dissidents were arrested and tried. Some were executed, while other were imprisoned

 One of the most significant events in modern history began to unfold slowly during the summer of 1989. After more than four decades of living under Communist totalitarianism, the peoples of eastern Europe were getting restless. They watched their poor quality of life get even worse, as the free nations of the West got ever more prosperous. On June 5, 1989, the once-outlawed Solidarity Party won an impressive victory in Poland's parliamentary elections. At the same time there was public unrest and violence in some Soviet republics. A very belated public funeral was held in Hungary for Imre Nagy, the reformer who had been executed in 1958. Hungary proclaimed its decision to remove itself from Soviet control and reform the economy according to free market standards. Hungary also removed stretches of barbed wire form its frontier to the West, effectively dismantling part of the Iron Curtain. This opening provided a chance for hundreds of East Germans to escape to the West through Hungary.

The mood in Hungary and the rest of eastern Europe was that Communist control was quickly becoming a thing of the past. Then, in late autumn, the whole system fell like a row of dominoes. The East German government resigned; the Berlin Wall was opened on November 9; and the two sectors of Berlin were suddenly one city again. The end of the Berlin Wall was the most symbolic of acts, signifying that the Cold War was quickly coming to an end. On November 24 the Communist leaders of Czechoslovakia resigned. By late December the once rejected reformer Alexander DubCek was elected chairman of Parliament. Once-jailed dissident poet Vaclav Havel was elected president of the country. The Communist leader of Bulgaria resigned on November 10. Revolution came to Romania violently in December. The government put down an uprising in Timisoara early in December, and this so angered the populace that huge crowds protested in Bucharest on December 22. Nicolai Ceausescu, the dictator, and his wife were apprehended and executed on Christmas Day. Albania took somewhat longer, but reform slowly gained ground there in the next two years.