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| 1949: The People's Republic Is Born Mao Zedong declares the founding of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1 in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. |
| 1958: A "Great Leap Forward" Employees of the Shin Chiao Hotel in Beijing build a rudimentary smelting steel furnace in the hotel courtyard in October. The Great Leap Forward, a scheme for mass industralization and collectivized farming designed as a Five-Year Plan from 1958 to 1963, was abandoned early after it led to widespread famine and the deaths of millions. |
| 1959: The Dalai Lama Flees Tibet Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, sixth from left, rests with members of an escape party who protected him during his flight across the Himalayas to exile. The Dalai Lama left the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on the night of March 17 after a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule. |
| 1966: The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Chinese Red Guards publicly parade their victims, who wear dunce caps and signs proclaiming their crimes, through the streets of Beijing. The Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 unleashed radicalized youth against so-called antirevolutionary groups who protested Mao's policies. This photo's date is unknown. |
| 1969: A Cult of Personality Red Guards parade through street carrying red flags and a portrait of Mao Zedong. The Cultural Revolution was launched by Mao in part to regain control of the party after the disasters of the Great Leap Forward, but its extremities shaped up to be another destructive period in modern China's history. |
| 1972: President Nixon Pays a Visit U.S. President Richard Nixon watches Premier Zhou Enlai eat at a banquet in Shanghai on Feb. 28. Nixon was the first President to visit the People's Republic; his trip paved the way for formal diplomatic relations between the two countries. |
| 1981: Confronting Past Excesses Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's widow, was sentenced to death on Jan. 25 for her role in the Cultural Revolution. Jiang and three other top leaders who formed the Gang of Four were arrested a month after Mao's death in 1976, marking what most consider the true end of the Cultural Revolution era, despite Mao having declared it to be officially over years before. Jiang's sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. |
| 1984: "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping visits Shenzhen, once a humble fishing village in southern China until it was turned into the nation's first special economic zone (SEZ) in 1980. Today Shenzhen is considered one of the megacities of the world, with a population 32 times what it was before becoming an SEZ, and is ranked as having the highest quality of life in China. |
| 1989: Massacre in Tiananmen Square The People's Liberation Army cracks down on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in June, killing hundreds. In the months before, up to a million student protesters had gathered in the heart of Beijing to demand greater freedom of speech and the resignation of Deng Xiaoping, who declared martial law on May 19, sparking a standoff that ended in the tragedy witnessed worldwide. |
| 1997: The Handover of Hong Kong Members of the combined Chinese armed-forces color guard raise the Chinese flag at the Hong Kong Convention Center on June 30, marking the moment Hong Kong returned to China after 155 years of British rule. Macau, a longtime colony of Portgual, was handed over two years later. |
| 1999: Popular Anti-Americanism Chinese policemen surround the U.S. embassy in Beijing on May 10 to prevent demonstrators from storming the compound, following the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Tens of thousands besieged the U.S. embassy for three days, attacking it with chunks of concrete and glasses. |
| 2003: An Unwanted Export Chinese paramedics tend to a man suspected of suffering from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) after he collapsed in public in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, on April 29. SARS spread from southern China around the world, causing massive economic losses and eventually leading to a shake-up in the country's murky health sector. |
| 2003: The First Taikonaut Staff members examine the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou-5, China's first manned spacecraft, in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Oct. 16. Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut, or taikonaut, emerged safely. |
| 2008: Tibetans Mark Anniversary Tibetans throw stones at army vehicles on a street in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa after violent protests broke out on March 14. Tibetans were commemorating the 1959 uprising against the Chinese that led to the Dalai Lama's flight and exile. |
| 2008: Disaster Response Troops help a victim of the earthquake in Sichuan province that killed an estimated 70,000 people on May 12. Though faulty state-built infrastructure was partially responsible for the magnitude of the disaster, Beijing was lauded for its fast and thorough response. |
| 2008: Olympic Dreams Fireworks explode above the stadium roof during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on Aug. 8. The Olympics were seen as a "coming out" party for a more modern and growing China on the global stage, and preparation and security for the event were extensi |
| 2008: Public Shame People holding babies who drank tainted milk powders queue to receive Type B ultrasonic examination in a hospital on Sept. 17 in Hubei province. At the time, three infants had already died from melamine-contaminated milk and 6,244 had been sickened, causing a outcry both within China and from countries around the world who rely on Chinese food imports. |
| 2009: Riots in Xinjiang Ethnic Uighur women grab a riot policeman as they protest in Urumqi in the far west province of Xinjiang on July 7. Police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of Han Chinese protesters armed with makeshift weapons. Clashes between the minority Muslim Uighurs and majority Han Chinese claimed hundreds of lives, leading to a security lockdown in the region that lasted for months. |
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