Tiananmen Square destroyed, the gate. Tiananmen Square was designed and built in 1651, and has since been enlarged by four times its original size in the 1950s. Near the centre of the square stood the "Great Ming Gate", the southern gate to the Imperial City, renamed "Great Qing Gate" during the Qing dynasty, and "Gate of China" during the Republican era. Unlike the other gates in Beijing, such as the Tiananmen and the Zhengyangmen, this was a purely ceremonial gateway, with three arches but no ramparts, similar in style to the ceremonial gateways found in the Ming tombs. This gate had a
Tiananmen Square the Tiananmen Square protests in 1976 after the death of Zhou Enlai, and the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 after the death of Hu Yaobang, the latter resulted in military suppression and the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of civilian protestors. One of the most famous images that appears during these protests was when a man stood in front of a line of moving tanks and refused to move, which was captured on Chang'an Avenue near the square. Other notable events include annual mass military displays on each anniversary of the 1949 proclamation until 1 October 1959; the 1984