Corruption was running rampant in Beijing in the spring of 1989, and one million students packed in Tiananmen Square

were determined to change that. The Tiananmen Square Revolution of 1989 led to a multitude of reactions and reforms, which made the protests a wonderful topic to study. Many different groups of people inside and outside of China all saw the protests differently, and the complexity of the Chinese government provided a multitude of reforms. In addition, one of our team members, Isaac, is currently studying Chinese, and wanted to learn more about the history of China. Another one of our team members, Connor, is interested in the history of Communism, making Tiananmen Square an excellent topic for this years History Day competition. Our project began with a series of questions, each addressing the three subtopics of this years topic of Revolution, Reaction, and Reform in history. We began our research with a trip to the San Diego Central Library. We found numerous helpful books regarding Tiananmen Square including our most important source, Tiananmen Papers. The book consisted of author generated content to go along with primary source documents and conversations inside the Chinese Government. This book was an avant-garde attempt at a look at the inner workings of the Chinese Government. The book was a day by day account of the protests, which provided us with important information for our whole project, along with primary sources in which we learned about government leaders and used for quotes. As with any research project, primary sources are vital. At times it was difficult to find primary sources from the governments point of view because of their closed stance to freedom of information. We found primary sources from books, library databases, and University and news websites, which were all vital to our project. The Tiananmen Square Protests had many sides and many opinions, which require good primary sources to interpret. We also benefited from two primary source interviews we conducted in person. One was with PeiYu Ohren, who was a student living in Beijing during the protests, who gave a unique first person view from a Chinese citizen. Another was with Alisa Barba, an NPR journalist who covered the protests first hand. Both were very beneficial in understanding the protests from both sides, that of a Chinese and that of an American. We chose the medium of a website because we believe that it is the perfect blend of text and multimedia. The website design using pages linking off other pages allowed for primary source documents and quotes to be connected with analysis. This is an example of the balance a website has to offer. We also needed multiple pages for revolution, reaction, and reform, and this clear differentiation between the sub-themes was only available in a website form. In short, it was the ease of separation between the sub-

themes and the balance offered that led us to choose a website. Tiananmen Square has taught us that a massive revolution doesnt guarantee reform.