In the spring of 1989, corruption was running rampant in Beijing, a fact that one million students packed into

Tiananmen Square were determined to change. The Tiananmen Square Revolution led to a multitude of reactions and reforms. Different groups of people inside and outside of China saw the protests differently, and the complexity of the Chinese government led to a variety of economic changes. 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. We began our project with a series of questions and 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 form of research, 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 journalist. We chose the medium of a website because we believe that it is the perfect blend of text and multimedia. A website allows user to interact with the content at their own speed. This is essential because it allows the viewer to learn the information at their own desired pace. It also allows for an ease of separation between topics and sub-themes. Today, the web is essential for many revolutionary movements. These movements are the reason why the Chinese government still censors the web, they fear another uprising like that of Tiananmen. Tiananmen Square has taught us that a massive revolution doesnt guarantee reform.