BBC FOUR

Coordinates	21°18′32″N157°49′34″N
name	BBC News
logo
type	Department of the BBC
location city	BBC Television Centre,White City,London
location country	United Kingdom
area served	Specific services for United Kingdom and rest of world
key people	Helen Boaden (Director)
industry	Media
services	Radio and television broadcasts
owner	BBC
num employees	3,500 (2,000 are journalists)
homepage
intl	yes }}

BBC News is the department of the BBC responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online news coverage. The service maintains 44 foreign news bureaux and has correspondents in almost all of the world's 240 countries. Since 2004 the Director of BBC News has been Helen Boaden.

The department's annual budget is £350 million; there are 3,500 members of staff, 2,000 of whom are journalists. Through the BBC English Regions BBC News has regional centres across England as well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. All regions and nations produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes.

Radio and television operations are broadcast from BBC Television Centre in West London though are set to move to brand new facilities in the newly extended and refurbished Broadcasting House in Central London in 2012. Television Centre houses all domestic, global and online news divisions within one main newsroom. Parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London.

Criticism of the BBC in the United Kingdom has generally taken the form of accusations of political bias from across the political spectrum, although the BBC is a quasi-autonomous corporation authorised by Royal Charter, making it formally independent of government. Internationally the BBC has been banned from reporting from within some countries who accuse the corporation of working to destabilise their governments.

In 2005 BBC News celebrated 50 years of news broadcasts. BBC News journalists, cameramen and programmes have won awards over the years for reporting, particularly from the Royal Television Society.

The BBC founded the BBC College of Journalism in 2005 as a part of the BBC Academy, following recommendations made after the Hutton Report.

History

The early years

The British Broadcasting Company broadcast its first radio bulletin from radio station 2LO on 14 November 1922. Televised bulletins came later on 5 July 1954, broadcast from leased studios within Alexandra Palace in London. However Gaumont British and Movietone cinema newsreels had been broadcast on the TV service since 1936 -with the BBC producing its own filmed equivalent ''Television Newsreel'' programme from January 1948. A weekly ''Children's Newsreel'' was inaugurated on 23 April 1950, broadcasting to around 350,000 receivers.

The public's interest in television and live events was stimulated by Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953. It is estimated that up to 27 million people viewed the programme in the UK – overtaking radio's audience of 12 million for the first time – and those live pictures were fed from 21 cameras in central London to Alexandra Palace for transmission, and then on to other UK transmitters opened in time for the event. In coronation year there were around two million TV Licences held in the UK, rising to over three million the following year and four and a half million by 1955.

1950s

Television news, although physically separate from its radio counterpart, was still firmly under its control – with correspondents providing reports for both outlets – and that first bulletin, shown on 5 July 1954 on the then BBC television service and presented by Richard Baker, involved his providing narration off-screen while stills were shown. This was then followed by the customary ''Television Newsreel'' with a recorded commentary by John Snagge (and on other occasions by Andrew Timothy).

It was revealed that this had been due to producers fearing a newsreader with visible facial movements would distract the viewer from the story in question. On-screen newsreaders were finally introduced a year later, in 1955 – Kenneth Kendall (the first to appear in vision), Robert Dougall and Richard Baker – just three weeks before ITN's launch date of 21 September 1955.

Mainstream television production had started to move out of Alexandra Palace in 1950 to larger premises – mainly at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush, west London – taking Current Affairs (then known as Talks Department) with it, and it was from here that the first ''Panorama'', a new documentary programme, was transmitted on 11 November 1953, with Richard Dimbleby taking over as anchor in 1955. On 18 February 1957 the topical early-evening programme ''Tonight'' hosted by Cliff Michelmore and designed to fill the airtime provided by the abolition of the Toddlers' Truce, was broadcast from Marconi's Viking Studio in St Mary Abbott's Place, Kensington – with the programme moving into a Lime Grove studio in 1960 where it already maintained its production office.

Later in 1957, on 28 October in central London, radio launched its morning programme ''Today'' on the Home Service.

In 1958 Hugh Carleton Greene became head of News and Current Affairs, and set up a BBC study group whose findings, published in 1959, were critical of what the television news operation had become under Greene's predecessor Tahu Hole. The solution proposed was that the head of television news should take control (away from radio), and that the television service should have a proper newsroom of its own, with an editor-of-the-day.

1960s

On 1 January 1960, Greene became Director General and under him big changes were afoot not only for BBC Television, but also for BBC Television News – a separate news department, formed in 1955 as a response to the founding of ITN – the aim was to make BBC reporting a little more like ITN, which had been praised by Greene's study group.

A newsroom was created at Alexandra Palace, television reporters recruited, and given the opportunity to write and voice their own scripts – without the "impossible burden" of having to cover stories for radio too.

In 1987, almost thirty years later, John Birt resurrected the practice of correspondents working for both TV and radio with the introduction of bi-media journalism, and 2008 saw tri-media introduced across TV, radio and online.

Also in 1960, Nan Winton, the first female BBC network newsreader, appeared in vision on 20 June, and 19 September saw the start of the radio news and current affairs programme ''The Ten O'clock News''.

Greene was a great innovator and (on a lighter note) asked Ned Sherrin, the then producer of ''Tonight'' to "prick the pomposity of public figures" with a weekly television show. So on 24 November 1962 ''That Was The Week That Was'', a satirical programme hosted by David Frost, was born at Lime Grove Studios and is mentioned here because (of Greene's actions) it was a product of Current Affairs department rather than Light Entertainment.

BBC 2 started transmission on 20 April 1964, and with it came a new news programme for that channel – ''Newsroom''.

''The World at One'' ''(WATO)'', a lunchtime news programme, began on 4 October 1965 on the then Home Service, and the year before ''News Review'' had started on television. ''News Review'' was a roundup of the weeks news, first broadcast on Sunday 26 April 1964 on BBC 2 and harking back to the weekly ''Newsreel Review of the Week'' (produced from 1951) to open programming on Sunday evenings – the difference being that this incarnation had subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. As this was the decade before electronic caption generation, each "super" (superimposition) had to be produced on paper or card, synchronised manually to studio and news footage, committed to tape during the afternoon and broadcast early evening – thus Sundays were no longer a quiet day for news at Alexandra Palace. The programme ran until the 1980s – by then using electronic captions, known as Anchor – to be superseded by Ceefax subtitling (a similar format), and the signing of such programmes as ''See Hear'' (from 1981).

On Sunday 17 September 1967 ''The World This Weekend'', a weekly news and current affairs programme, launched on what was then Home Service, but soon-to-be Radio 4.

Preparations for colour began in the autumn of 1967 and on Thursday 7 March 1968 ''Newsroom'' on BBC 2 moved to an early evening slot, becoming the first UK news programme to be transmitted in colour – from Studio A at Alexandra Palace. ''News Review'' and ''Westminster'' (the latter a weekly review of Parliamentary happenings) were "colourised" shortly after.

However, much of the insert material was still in black and white, as initially only a part of the film coverage shot in and around London was on colour reversal film stock, and all regional and many international contributions were still in black and white too. Colour facilities were also technically very limited for the next eighteen months at Alexandra Palace, as it had only one RCA colour videotape machine and, eventually two Pye plumbicon colour telecines – although the news colour service started with just one.

Black and white national bulletins on BBC 1 continued to originate from Studio B on weekdays, along with ''Town and Around'', the London regional "opt out" programme broadcast throughout the 1960s (and the BBC's first regional news programme for the South East), until it started to be replaced by ''Nationwide'' on Tuesday to Thursday from Lime Grove Studios early in September 1969. ''Town and Around'' was never to make the move to Television Centre – instead it became ''London This Week'' which transmitted on Mondays and Fridays only from the new TVC studios.

Television News moves to Television Centre

The final news programme to come from Alexandra Palace was a late night news on BBC 2 on Friday 19 September 1969 in colour. It was said that over this September weekend, sixty-five removal vans were needed to transfer the contents of Alexandra Palace across London. BBC Television News resumed operations the next day with a lunchtime bulletin on BBC 1 – in black and white – from Television Centre, where it has remained ever since.

This move to better technical facilities, but much smaller studios, allowed ''Newsroom'' and ''News Review'' to replace back projection with CSO.

And it also allowed ''all'' news output to be produced in PAL colour, in preparation for the "colourisation" of BBC 1 from 15 November 1969 – and, like Alexandra Palace Studio A, these studios too were capable of operating in NTSC for the US, Canada and Japan as the BBC occasionally provided facilities for overseas broadcasters. During the 1960s satellite communication had become not only possible, but popular, however colour field-store standards converters were still in their infancy in 1968 and we would have to wait until the 1970s for digital line-store conversion to do the job seamlessly.

1970s

On 14 September 1970 the first ''Nine O'Clock News'' was broadcast on television with Robert Dougall presenting the first week from studio N1 – described by ''The Guardian'' as "a sort of polystyrene padded cell" – the bulletin having been moved from the earlier time of 20:45 as a response to the ratings achieved by ITNs ''News at Ten'' introduced three years earlier. Richard Baker and Kenneth Kendall presented subsequent weeks, thus echoing those first television bulletins of the mid 1950s.

The ''Nine'' made history again in 1975 with the appointment of Angela Rippon as the first female news presenter. Her work outside the news was controversial for the time, appearing on the Morecambe and Wise show singing and dancing.

The early evening news on BBC 1 remained at its regular time of 17:50 – there would be another fourteen years before it got a similar makeover to become the ''Six O'Clock News''.

The first edition of ''John Craven's Newsround'' – initially intended only as a short series and later renamed just ''Newsround'' – came from studio N3 on 4 April 1972.

Afternoon television news bulletins during the mid to late 1970s were broadcast from the BBC newsroom itself, rather than one of the three news studios. The newsreader would present to camera while sitting on the edge of a desk; behind him staff would be seen working busily at their desks. This period corresponded with when the ''Nine O'Clock News'' got its next makeover, and would use a CSO background of the newsroom from that very same camera each weekday evening.

Also in the mid seventies, the late night news on BBC 2 was briefly renamed ''Newsnight'', but this wasn't to last, or be the same programme as we know today – that would be launched in 1980 – and it soon reverted to being just a news summary with the early evening BBC 2 news expanded to become ''Newsday''.

News on radio was to change in the 1970s, and on Radio 4 in particular, brought about by the arrival of new editor Peter Woon from television news and the implementation of the ''Broadcasting in the Seventies '' report. These included the introduction of correspondents into news bulletins where previously only a newsreader would present, as well as the inclusion of content gathered in the preparation process. New programmes were also added to the daily schedule, PM and The World Tonight as part of the plan for the station to become a "wholly speech network". ''Newsbeat'' launched as the news service on Radio 1 on 10 September 1973.

On 23 September 1974, a teletext system which was developed to bring news content on television screens using text only was launched. Engineers originally began developing such a system to bring news to deaf viewers, but the system was expanded. The Ceefax service is now much more diverse: it not only has subtitling for all channels, it also gives information such as weather, flight times and film reviews.

The decline in shooting film for news broadcasts became more prevalent, as ENG equipment became less cumbersome – the BBC's first attempts had been using a Philips colour camera with backpack base station and separate portable Sony U-matic recorder in the latter half of the decade.

1980s

By 1982 ENG technology had become so stable that an Ikegami camera was used by Bernard Hesketh to cover the Falklands War – winning him the RTS TV Cameraman of the Year award and a BAFTA nomination for his "footage" – the first time that the electronic camera had been relied upon in a conflict zone by BBC News, rather than film. BBC News won the BAFTA for its actuality coverage, however the event has become remembered in television terms for Brian Hanrahan's reporting where he coined the phrase "I'm not allowed to say how many planes joined the raid, but I counted them all out and I counted them all back" to circumvent restrictions, and which has become cited as an example of good reporting under pressure.

Two years prior to this the Iranian Embassy Siege had been shot electronically by the BBC Television News OB team with Kate Adie reporting live from Prince's Gate, again nominated for BAFTA actuality coverage, but this time beaten by ITN for the 1980 award.

''Newsnight'', the news and current affairs programme still running to this day, was due to go on air on 23 January 1980, although trade union disagreements meant that its launch from Lime Grove was postponed by a week".

On 27 August 1981 Moira Stuart became the first Afro-Caribbean female newsreader to appear on British television.

The first BBC breakfast television programme, ''Breakfast Time'' also launched during the 1980s, on 17 January 1983 from Lime Grove Studio E and two weeks before its ITV rival TV-am. Presenters including Frank Bough, Selina Scott and Nick Ross helped to wake viewers with a relaxed style of presenting.

The ''Six O'Clock News'' first aired on 3 September 1984, eventually becoming the most watched news programme in the UK (however, since 2006 it has been overtaken by the ''BBC News at Ten'').

Starting in 1981, the BBC gave a common theme to its main news bulletins with new electronic titles – a set of animated computerised "stripes" forming a circle on a red background with a "BBC News" typescript appearing below the circle graphics, and a theme tune consisting of brass and keyboards. The ''Nine'' used a similar (stripey) number 9. The red background was replaced by a blue from 1985 until 1987.

By 1987, the BBC had decided to re-brand its bulletins and established individual styles again for each one with differing titles and music, the weekend and holiday bulletins branded in a similar style to the ''Nine'', although the "stripes" introduction continued to be used until 1989 on occasions where a news bulletin was screened out of the running order of the schedule.

1990s

During the 1990s, a wider range of services began to be offered by BBC News, with the split of BBC World Service Television to become BBC World (news and current affairs), and BBC Prime (light entertainment). Content for a 24 hour news channel was thus required, followed in 1997 with the launch of domestic equivalent BBC News 24. Rather than set bulletins, ongoing reports and coverage was needed to keep both channels functioning and meant a greater emphasis in budgeting for both was necessary.

In 1998 after 66 years at Broadcasting House, the BBC Radio News operation moved to BBC Television Centre.

New 'Silicon Graphics' technology came into use in 1993 for a relaunch of the main BBC One bulletins, creating a virtual set which appeared to be much larger than it was physically. The relaunch also brought all bulletins into the same style of set with only small changes in colouring, titles and music to differentiate each. A computer generated glass sculpture of the BBC coat of arms was the centrepiece of the programme titles until the largescale corporation rebranding of news services in 1999.

In 1999, the biggest relaunch occurred, with BBC One bulletins, BBC World, BBC News 24 and BBC News Online all adopting a common style. One of the most significant changes was the gradual adoption of the corporate image by the BBC regional news programmes, giving a common style across local, national and international BBC television news. This also included ''Newyddion'', the main news programme of Welsh language channel S4C, produced by BBC News Wales. The introduction of regional headlines at the start of bulletins followed in 2000 though the English regions lost five minutes at the end of bulletins, due to a new headline round-up at 18:55.

It was also in 2000 that the ''Nine O'Clock News'' moved to the later time of 22:00. This was in response to ITN who had just moved their popular ''News at Ten'' programme to 23:00. ITN briefly returned ''News at Ten'' but following poor ratings when head to head against the BBC's ''Ten O'Clock News'', the ITN bulletin was moved to 22.30, where it remained until 14 January 2008.

2000s

The retirement of Michael Buerk and departure of Peter Sissons from the ''Ten O'Clock News'' led to changes in the BBC One bulletin presenting team on 20 January 2003. The ''Six O'Clock News'' became double headed with George Alagiah and Sophie Raworth after Huw Edwards and Fiona Bruce moved to present the ''Ten''. At the time of the changes, a new set design featuring a projected background image of a fictional newsroom was introduced. New programme titles were introduced on 16 February 2004 to match those of BBC News 24.

BBC News 24 and BBC World introduced a new style of presentation in December 2003, that was slightly altered on 5 July 2004 to mark 50 years of BBC Television News.

The individual positions of editor of the ''One'' and ''Six O'Clock News'' were replaced by a new daytime position in November 2005. Kevin Bakhurst became the first Controller of BBC News 24, replacing the position of editor. Amanda Farnsworth became daytime editor while Craig Oliver was later named editor of the ''Ten O'Clock News''. The bulletins also began to be simulcast with News 24, as a way of pooling resources.

Bulletins received new titles and a new set design in May 2006, to allow for ''Breakfast'' to move into the main studio for the first time since 1997. The new set featured Barco videowall screens with a background of the London skyline used for main bulletins and originally an image of cirrus clouds against a blue sky for ''Breakfast''. This was later replaced following viewer criticism. The studio bore similarities with the ITN-produced ITV News in 2004, though ITN uses a CSO Virtual studio rather than the actual screens at BBC News.

A new graphics and video playout system was introduced for production of television bulletins in January 2007. This coincided with a new structure to BBC World News bulletins, editors favouring a section devoted to analysing the news stories reported on.

The first new BBC News bulletin since the ''Six O'Clock News'' was announced in July 2007 following a successful trial in the Midlands. The summary, lasting 90 seconds, has been broadcast at 20:00 on weekdays since December 2007 and bears similarities with ''60 Seconds'' on BBC Three, but also includes headlines from the various BBC regions and a weather summary.

As part of a long-term cost cutting programme, bulletins were renamed the ''BBC News at One'', ''Six'' and ''Ten'' respectively in April 2008 while BBC News 24 was renamed BBC News and moved into the same studio as the bulletins at BBC Television Centre. BBC World was renamed ''BBC World News'' and regional news programmes were also updated with the new presentation style, designed by Lambie-Nairn.

The studio moves also meant that Studio N9, previously used for BBC World, was closed, and operations moved to the previous studio of BBC News 24. Studio N9 was later refitted to match the new branding, and was used for the BBC's UK Local Elections and European Elections coverage in early June 2009.

Organisational changes

BBC News became part of the new BBC Journalism group in November 2006 as part of a major restructuring of the BBC. Helen Boaden remains Director of BBC News, reporting to Mark Byford, head of the new group and Deputy Director-General.

It was announced on 18 October 2007 as part of Mark Thompson's new six year plan, ''Delivering Creative Future'', that there would no longer be a television Current Affairs department in its own right – it would become a unit within the new News Programmes department. The Director General's announcement, in response to a £2billion shortfall in funding, would deliver ''"a smaller, but fitter, BBC"'' in the digital age – along with imminent job cuts and the sale of Television Centre in 2013.

The various newsrooms of the BBC: television, radio and online, were merged together to create a multimedia newsroom – programme making within the newsrooms was brought together to form the multimedia programme making departments. Peter Horrocks, referring to the changes, stated that the move would bring about a greater efficiency – particularly at a time of cost-cutting at the BBC. He highlighted the dilemma faced with such a change in his blog: that by using the same resources across the various broadcasting mediums means fewer stories can be covered – or by following more stories, there would be fewer ways to broadcast them.

The entire News Operation is due to move from Television Centre to new facilities at Broadcasting House at Portland Place, Central London. Refurbishment and extension work was scheduled for completion in 2008 though delays have seen the deadline extended until 2010, with news expecting to move in during 2012. The new building will also become home to the BBC World Service once the lease on Bush House expires.

A strategy review of the BBC in March 2010 confirmed that having 'the best journalism in the world' would form one of five key editorial policies, as part of sweeping changes subject to public consultation and BBC Trust approval.

Broadcasting media

Television

BBC News is responsible for the main newscasts on BBC One as well as other programmes on BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, the BBC News Channel, and the provision of 22 hours of programming for BBC World News. Coverage for BBC Parliament is carried out on behalf on the BBC at Millbank Studios though BBC News provides editorial and journalistic content.

BBC News content is also output onto the BBC's digital interactive television services under the BBC Red Button brand, and the legacy analogue Ceefax teletext system.

The distinctive music on all BBC television news programmes was introduced in 1999 and composed by David Lowe. It was part of the extensive re-branding which commenced in 1999 and features the classic 'BBC Pips' The general theme was used not only on bulletins on BBC One but News 24, BBC World and local news programmes in the BBC's Nations and Regions. Lowe was also responsible for the music on Radio One's ''Newsbeat''. The theme has had several changes since 1999.

The BBC Arabic Television news channel launched on 11 March 2008 – with a Persian language channel following on 14 January 2009, broadcasting from the Egton wing of Broadcasting House; both include news, analysis, interviews, sports and highly cultural programmes and are run by the BBC World Service and funded from a grant-in-aid from the British Foreign Office (and not the television licence).

Radio

BBC Radio News produces bulletins for the BBC's national radio stations and provides content for local BBC radio stations via the General News Service (GNS). BBC News does not produce the BBC's regional news bulletins, which are produced individually by the BBC nations and regions themselves. The BBC World Service broadcasts to some 150 million people in English as well as 32 languages across the globe.

BBC Radio News is a patron of The Radio Academy.

Online

BBC News Online is the BBC's news website. Launched in November 1997, it is one of the most popular news websites in the UK reaching over a quarter of the UK's internet users, and worldwide, with around 14 million global readers every month. The website contains exhaustive international news coverage as well as entertainment, sport, science, and political news.

Many television and radio programmes are also available to view on the site, via the BBC iPlayer service. The BBC News channel is also available to view 24 hours a day, while video and radio clips are also available within online news articles.

Opinions

Political and commercial independence

The BBC is required by its charter to be free from both political and commercial influence and answers only to its viewers and listeners. Nevertheless, the BBC's political objectivity is sometimes questioned. For instance, ''The Daily Telegraph'' (3 August 2005) carried a letter from the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky, referring to it as "The Red Service". Books have been written on the subject, including anti-BBC works like ''Truth Betrayed'' by W J West and ''The Truth Twisters'' by Richard Deacon.

The BBC's 'Editorial Guidelines' on Politics and Public Policy state that whilst 'the voices and opinions of opposition parties must be routinely aired and challenged', 'the government of the day will often be the primary source of news'.

The BBC is regularly accused by the government of the day of bias in favour of the opposition and, by the opposition, of bias in favour of the government. Similarly, during times of war, the BBC is often accused by the UK government, or by strong supporters of British military campaigns, of being overly sympathetic to the view of the enemy. An edition of Newsnight at the start of the Falklands War in 1982 was described as "almost treasonable" by Conservative MP John Page, who objected to the presenter Peter Snow talking of "if we believe the British".

During the first Gulf War, critics of the BBC took to using the satirical name "Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation". During the Kosovo War, the BBC were labelled the "Belgrade Broadcasting Corporation" (suggesting favouritism towards the FR Yugoslavia government over ethnic Albanian rebels) by British ministers, although Slobodan Milosević (then FRY president) claimed that the BBC's coverage had been biased ''against'' his nation.

Conversely, some of those who style themselves anti-establishment in the United Kingdom or who oppose foreign wars have accused the BBC of pro-establishment bias or of refusing to give an outlet to "anti-war" voices. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq a study, by the Cardiff University School of Journalism, of the reporting of the war, found that nine out of 10 references to weapons of mass destruction during the war assumed that Iraq possessed them, and only one in 10 questioned this assumption. It also found that out of the main British broadcasters covering the war the BBC was the most likely to use the British government and military as its source. It was also the least likely to use independent sources, like the Red Cross, who were more critical of the war. When it came to reporting Iraqi casualties the study found fewer reports on the BBC than on the other three main channels. The report's author, Justin Lewis, wrote of his findings: "Far from revealing an anti-war BBC, our findings tend to give credence to those who criticised the BBC for being too sympathetic to the government in its war coverage. Either way, it is clear that the accusation of BBC anti-war bias fails to stand up to any serious or sustained analysis".

Prominent BBC appointments are constantly assessed by the British media and political establishment for signs of political bias. The appointment of Greg Dyke as Director-General was highlighted by press sources because Dyke was a Labour Party member and former activist, as well as a friend of Tony Blair. The BBC's current Political Editor, Nick Robinson, was some years ago a chairman of the Young Conservatives and did, as a result, attract informal criticism from the former Labour government, but his predecessor Andrew Marr faced similar claims from the right because he was editor of the liberal leaning Independent newspaper before his own appointment in 2000.

Director-General of the BBC Mark Thompson admitted the organisation has been biased "towards the left". He said, "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago, there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left".

India

In 2008, the BBC was criticised by some for referring to the terrorists who carried out the November 2008 Mumbai attacks as "gunmen", This follows a steady stream of complaints from India that the BBC has an Indophobic bias that stems from a culturally ingrained racism against Indians arising from the British Raj. Rediff reporter, Arindam Banerji, has chronicled numerous cases of Indophobic bias from the BBC regarding reportage, selection bias, misrepresentation, and fabrications. Hindu groups in the United Kingdom have accused the BBC of anti-Hindu bigotry and whitewashing Islamist hate groups that demonise the British Indian minority

In protest against the claimed biased coverage of the BBC, renowned journalist Mobashar Jawed "M.J." Akbar has elected to boycott the BBC to speak about the Mumbai terror attacks. British parliamentarian Stephen Pound has supported these claims, referring to the BBC's whitewashing of the terror attacks as "the worst sort of mealy mouthed posturing. It is desperation to avoid causing offence which ultimately causes more offence to everyone."

Writing for ''The Hindu Business Line'', reporter Premen Addy criticised the BBC's reportage on South Asia as consistently anti-India and pro-Islamist, and that they underreport India's economic and social achievements, as well as political and diplomatic efforts, and disproportionately highlight and exaggerate problems in the country. In addition, Addy alludes to discrimination against Indian anchors and reporters in favour of Pakistani and Bangladeshi ones who are hostile to India.

Writing for the 2008 edition of the peer-reviewed ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'', Alasdair Pinkerton analyses the coverage of India by the BBC since India's independence from British rule in 1947 until 2008. Pinkerton observes a tumultuous history involving allegations of anti-India bias in the BBC's reportage, particularly during the cold war, and concludes that the BBC's coverage of South Asian geopolitics and economics shows a pervasive and hostile anti-India bias due to the BBC's alleged imperialist and neo-colonialist stance.

Writing on western media bias regarding South Asia in the journal of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, media analyst Ajai K. Rai strongly criticised the BBC for anti-India bias. He claims that there is a total lack of depth or fairness in the BBC's reportage on conflict zones in South Asia, and that the BBC has, on one occasion, fabricated photographs while reporting on the Kashmir conflict in order to make India look bad. He also writes that the BBC made false allegations that the Indian Army stormed a sacred Muslim shrine, the tomb of Hazrat Sheikh Noor-u-din Noorani in Charari Sharief, and only retracted the claim after strong criticism from the media in India for several weeks.

Hutton Inquiry

BBC News was at the centre of one the largest political controversies in recent years. Three BBC News reports (Andrew Gilligan's on ''Today'', Gavin Hewitt's on ''The Ten O'Clock News'' and another on ''Newsnight'') quoted an anonymous source that stated the British government (particularly the Prime Minister's office) had embellished the September Dossier with misleading exaggerations of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities. The government denounced the reports and accused the corporation of poor journalism.

In subsequent weeks the corporation stood by the report, saying that it had a reliable source. Following intense media speculation, David Kelly was named in the press as the source for Gilligan's story on 9 July 2003. Kelly was found dead, by suicide, in a field close to his home early on 18 July. An inquiry led by Lord Hutton was announced by the British government the following day to investigate the circumstances leading to Kelly's death, concluding that "Dr. Kelly took his own life."

In his report on 28 January 2004, Lord Hutton concluded that Gilligan's original accusation was "unfounded" and the BBC's editorial and management processes were "defective". In particular, it specifically criticised the chain of management that caused the BBC to defend its story. The BBC Director of News, Richard Sambrook, the report said, had accepted Gilligan's word that his story was accurate in spite of his notes being incomplete. Davies had then told the BBC Board of Governors that he was happy with the story and told the Prime Minister that a satisfactory internal inquiry had taken place. The Board of Governors, under BBC Chairman Gavyn Davies' guidance, accepted that further investigation of the Government's complaints were unnecessary.

Because of the criticism in the Hutton report, Davies resigned on the day of publication. BBC News faced an important test, reporting on itself with the publication of the report, but by common consent (of the Board of Governors) managed this "independently, impartially and honestly". Davies' resignation was followed by the resignation of Director General Greg Dyke the following day, and the resignation of Gilligan on 30 January. While doubtless a traumatic experience for the corporation, an ICM poll in April 2003 indicated that it had sustained its position as the best and most trusted provider of news.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The BBC has faced accusations of holding both anti-Arab and anti-Israel biases.

For example, Douglas Davis, the London correspondent of ''The Jerusalem Post'', has described the BBC's coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict as "a relentless, one-dimensional portrayal of Israel as a demonic, criminal state and Israelis as brutal oppressors [which] bears all the hallmarks of a concerted campaign of vilification that, wittingly or not, has the effect of delegitimising the Jewish state and pumping oxygen into a dark old European hatred that dared not speak its name for the past half-century.". However two large independent studies, one conducted by Loughborough University and the other by Glasgow University's Media Group concluded that Israeli perspectives are given greater coverage.

Critics of the BBC argue that the Balen Report proves systematic bias against Israel in headline news programming. ''Daily Mail'' and ''The Daily Telegraph'' criticised BBC for spending hundreds of thousands of British tax payers pounds from preventing the report being released to the public.

Jeremy Bowen, the Middle East Editor for BBC world news, was singled out specifically for bias by the BBC Trust which concluded that he violated "BBC guidelines on accuracy and impartiality."

Noam Chomsky, and David Edwards of Medialens.org tend to criticise the BBC through differences in terminology sometimes used to describe Israeli and Palestinian actions. Israeli shootings are usually described as "security sweeps" or "incursions", while Palestinian shootings are described as "terrorist killings" committed by "gunmen".

An independent panel appointed by the BBC Trust was set up in 2006 to review the impartiality of the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The panel's assessment was that "apart from individual lapses, there was little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias." While noting a "commitment to be fair accurate and impartial" and praising much of the BBC's coverage the independent panel concluded "that BBC output does not consistently give a full and fair account of the conflict. In some ways the picture is incomplete and, in that sense, misleading." It notes that, "the failure to convey adequately the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience, [reflects] the fact that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation".

Writing in the FT, Philip Stephens, one of the panellists, later accused the BBC's director-general, Mark Thompson, of misrepresenting the panel's conclusions. He further opined "My sense is that BBC news reporting has also lost a once iron-clad commitment to objectivity and a necessary respect for the democratic process. If I am right, the BBC, too, is lost". Mark Thompson published a rebuttal in the FT the next day.

The description by one BBC correspondent reporting on the funeral of Yassir Arafat that she had been left with tears in her eyes led to other questions of impartiality, particularly from Martin Walker'" in a guest opinion piece in ''The Times'', who picked out the apparent case of Fayad Abu Shamala, the BBC Arabic Service correspondent, who told a Hamas rally on 6 May 2001, that journalists in Gaza were "waging the campaign shoulder to shoulder together with the Palestinian people."

Walker argues that the independent inquiry was flawed for two reasons. Firstly, because the time period over which it was conducted (August 2005 to January 2006) surrounded the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Ariel Sharon's stroke, which produced more positive coverage than usual. Furthermore, he wrote, the inquiry only looked at the BBC's domestic coverage, and excluded output on the BBC World Service and BBC World.

Tom Gross accused BBC of glorifying Hamas suicide bombers, and condemned its policy of inviting guests such as Jenny Tonge and Tom Paulin who have compared Israeli soldiers to Nazis. Writing for the BBC, Paulin said Israeli soldiers should be "shot dead" like Hitler's S.S, and said he could "understand how suicide bombers feel." According to Gross, Paulin and Tonge continue to be invited as regular guests, and they are among the most frequent contributors to their most widely-screened arts program.

The BBC also faced criticism for not airing a Disasters Emergency Committee aid appeal for Palestinians who suffered in Gaza during 22-day war there in late 2008/early 2009. Most other major UK broadcasters did air this appeal, but rival Sky News did not.

British lawyer and journalist Julie Burchill has accused BBC of creating a "climate of fear" for British Jews over its "excessive coverage" of Israel compared to other nations.

In a 68 page study published by BBC watch examining BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict between January–June 2005, it concluded that "journalists have a predilection to denigrate Israel and to evoke sympathy for Palestinians." The researchers claimed that BBC is "fascinated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" based on a pictorial analysis: 15.80% of all pictures published on BBC world news are on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, compared to 0.51% for the Darfur conflict.

The view of foreign governments

BBC News reporters and broadcasts are now and have in the past been banned in several countries primarily for reporting which has been unfavourable to the ruling government. For example, correspondents were banned by the former apartheid régime of South Africa. The BBC was banned in Zimbabwe under Mugabe for eight years as a terrorist organisation until being allowed to operate again over a year after the 2008 elections. The BBC has been banned in Burma (officially Myanmar) since the anti-government protests there in September 2007. Other cases have included Uzbekistan, China, and Pakistan. The BBC online news site's Persian version was recently blocked from the Iranian internet. The BBC News website was made available in China again in March 2008.

See also

BBC News Special

BBC newsreaders and journalists

BBC television news programmes

List of BBC television newsreaders

List of former BBC newsreaders and journalists

Toddlers' Truce

References

External links

BBC News – Fifty years of TV news at BBC Online

About BBC News at BBC Online (Slightly dated overview from 2004)

BBC Newswatch – The history of BBC News at BBC Online

BBC News Styleguide

BBC News in focus: Photos from the past six decades The Guardian

Archive Repository for Selective BBC Arabic News Feeds

Category:1922 establishments in the United Kingdom News BBC television news programmes Category:BBC World News programmes Category:Multilingual news services Category:Television news in the United Kingdom Category:Winners of the Sir Arthur Clarke Award

ar:بي بي سي نيوز ca:BBC News ceb:BBC News da:BBC News de:BBC News es:BBC News eo:BBC News fr:BBC News id:BBC News it:BBC News jv:BBC News arz:بى بى سى نيوز ms:BBC News nl:BBC News ja:BBCニュース no:BBC News (TV-kanal) nn:BBC News pl:BBC News pt:BBC News ro:BBC News simple:BBC News fi:BBC News (televisiokanava) sv:BBC News

Coordinates	21°18′32″N157°49′34″N
name	Darcus Howe
birth place	Trinidad and Tobago
death date
resting place coordinates
residence	Brixton, South London, England
occupation
website	}}

Darcus Howe (born 1943) is a British broadcaster, columnist, and civil liberties campaigner. Originally from Trinidad, he moved to America in the 1960s, then arrived in England intending to study law, where he joined the British Black Panthers, the first such branch of the organization outside the United States. He came to public attention in 1970 as one of the Mangrove Nine, when he marched to the police station in Notting Hill, London, to protest against police raids of the Mangrove restaurant, and again in 1981 when he organized a 20,000-strong "Black People's March" in protest at the handling of the investigation into the New Cross Fire, in which 13 black teenagers died.

He is a former editor of ''Race Today'', and former chair of the Notting Hill Carnival. He is best known in the UK for his "Black on Black" series on Channel 4; his current affairs programme, ''Devil's Advocate''; and his work with Tariq Ali on ''Bandung File''. His television work also includes ''White Tribe'' (2000), a look at modern Britain and its loss of "Englishness"; ''Slave Nation'' (2001); and ''Who You Callin' a Nigger?'' (2004). He writes columns for ''New Statesman'' and ''The Voice''.

Early life and early career

Howe was born in Trinidad, the son of an Anglican priest. He first moved to England at the age of 18, arriving on the SS ''Antilles'' at Southampton. He intended to study law at Middle Temple, but left the law for journalism. He returned to Trinidad, where his uncle and mentor, radical intellectual CLR James, inspired him to combine writing with political activism. A brief spell as assistant editor on the Trinidad trade union paper ''The Vanguard'' was followed by a return to Britain, where he served as editor of the magazine ''Race Today'' from 1973 to 1985.

He became a member of the British Black Panther Movement, and in the summer of 1970 took part in a protest against the frequent police raids of the Mangrove restaurant in Notting Hill, where he worked on the till. The restaurant had become a meeting place for black people, serving as what Howe called the "headquarters of radical chic". It was raided 12 times between January 1969 and July 1970 by police looking for drugs, and so 150 demonstrators marched on the local police station in protest, a demonstration that ended in violence. Six weeks later, Howe and eight others—the Mangrove Nine—were arrested for riot, affray and assault. He and four of his co-defendants were acquitted of all charges after a celebrated 55-day trial in 1971 at the Old Bailey, which included an unsuccessful demand by Howe for an all-black jury, and fighting in the dock when some of the defendants tried to punch the prison officers. The judge stated that there was "evidence of racial hatred on both sides"—the first acknowledgement from a British judge that there was racial hatred in the Metropolitan Police Service.

In 1977 Howe was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for assault, after a racially motivated altercation at a London Underground Station, but was released upon appeal after protests over his arrest. Linton Kwesi Johnson contributed a song, "Man Free (For Darcus Howe)", to the campaign for his release.

Broadcasting career

In 1982, Howe began his broadcasting career on Channel 4's television series ''Black on Black'', later co-editor with Tariq Ali of ''Bandung File'' and more recently ''White Tribe'', a look at modern day Britain and its loss of 'Englishness'. Howe has continued to write in the ''New Statesman'' and fronted the Channel 4 current affairs programme ''Devil's Advocate''. He was a keynote speaker at the 2005 Belfast Film Festival's "Film and Racism" seminar and presented his documentary ''Who You Callin' a Nigger?'' at the festival.

In October 2005, Howe presented a Channel 4 documentary ''Son of Mine'', about his troubled relationship with his 20-year-old son Amiri, who had been caught handling stolen passports, shoplifting, and accused of attempted rape.

Howe appeared on the discussion programme, ''Midweek'' (on BBC Radio 4), to promote the documentary on 19 October 2005 and, live on air, became involved in an angry debate with American comedienne Joan Rivers. The dispute began when Howe suggested that Rivers was offended by the use of the term "black"; Rivers objected strongly to the suggestion that she was racist and forced Howe into an apology.

Howe was one of several public figures who fell foul of perennial satirist and prankster Chris Morris on Morris' show ''Brass Eye'', in the final episode, 'Decline'.

BBC interview

Howe was interviewed by Fiona Armstrong for BBC News on 9 August 2011 during the 2011 England riots. During the interview, Armstrong twice referred to him as "Marcus Dowe," then asked: "You are not a stranger to riots yourself, I understand, are you? You have taken part in them yourself." Howe denied this, saying: "I have never taken part in a single riot. I've been part of demonstrations that ended up in a conflict. Have some respect for an old West Indian Negro, and stop accusing me of being a rioter. Because you wanted for me to get abusive, you just sound idiotic—have some respect." The BBC apologised for any offence the interview caused, and said "it had not intended to show him any disrespect".

Personal life

Howe has been married three times and has seven children. The 2005 Channel 4 documentary ''Son of Mine'' examines Howe's relationship with his 20-year-old son Amiri, who faced jail for charges related to stolen passports. His daughter Tamara was a director of production for London Weekend Television. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in April 2007 and has since campaigned for more men to get tested.

A biography of Howe, ''Darcus Howe: a Political Biography'', by Robin Bunce of Cambridge University and human rights activist Paul Field, is currently in preparation.

See also

British African-Caribbean community

References

External links

Bio", BlackinBritain.co.uk, accessed 13 August 2011.

Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:British writers Category:English people of Trinidad and Tobago descent Category:Trinidad and Tobago emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Black British writers Category:British people convicted of assault

Coordinates	21°18′32″N157°49′34″N
name	Diana
title	Princess of Wales; Duchess of Rothesay; Duchess of Cornwall (more)
spouse	Charles, Prince of Wales (29 July 1981, div. 1996)
issue	Prince William, Duke of CambridgePrince Harry of Wales
full name	Diana Frances
house	House of Windsor
birth date	July 01, 1961
birth place	Park House, Sandringham, Norfolk
father	John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer
mother	Frances Shand Kydd
place of christening	St. Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham, Norfolk
death date	August 31, 1997
death place	Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, Paris, France
burial date	6 September 1997
place of burial	Althorp, Northamptonshire }}

Diana, Princess of Wales (Diana Frances;|name="sur" |group="N"}} ''née'' Spencer; 1 July 1961 31 August 1997) was an international personality of the late 20th century as the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981. The wedding, held at St. Paul's Cathedral, was televised and watched by a global audience of over 750 million people. The marriage produced two sons: Princes William and Harry, currently second and third in line to the thrones of the 16 Commonwealth realms, respectively.

A public figure from the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles, Diana was born into an old, aristocratic English family with royal ancestry, and remained the focus of worldwide media scrutiny before, during and after her marriage, which ended in divorce on 28 August 1996. This media attention continued following her death in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997, and in the subsequent display of public mourning a week later. Diana also received recognition for her charity work and for her support of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. From 1989, she was the president of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

Early life

Diana Spencer was born in the late afternoon on 1 July 1961, in Sandringham, Norfolk. She was the third child born to John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and Frances Ruth Burke Roche, Viscountess Althorp (later known as Frances Shand Kydd). While her family was overjoyed, there was no hiding that the fact that the entire Spencer family was hoping for a male heir to carry on the Spencer name. The Spencer family is one of Great Britain's oldest and most important families. They have been closely allied with the royal family for over five hundred years. Since they were initially expecting a boy, the family had no name chosen when she was first born. A week later they settled on Diana Frances, after a Spencer ancestress and her mother. Diana was the sister of Lady Sarah McCorquodale, Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes, and Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer. Diana was baptized at Sandringham church, with normal commoners as god parents. While her baby brother, Charles, was baptized at Westminster Abbey with Queen Elizabeth II as principal god parent. She also had another brother, John, who died a year before she was born. According to Andrew Morton's biography about the Princess of Wales, he was so deformed and sick that he only survived ten hours after he was born. This initially put strain on John and Frances' marriage. Lady Frances Althorp was sent to Harley Street clinics in London, after older members of the Spencer family questioned why she could only give birth to girls. The experience was described as "humiliating", with Charles Spencer, the current Earl Spencer saying: "It was a dreadful time for my parents and probably the root of their divorce because I don't think they ever got over it." While young, Diana caught the pitch of her family's frustration. She considered herself a nuisance, and later felt an overwhelming load of guilt over it. These feelings she later learned to accept and recognize. Diana grew up in Park House which was situated near to the Sandringham estate.

Diana's parents separated when she was only seven years of age. They divorced because her mother, Frances, had an affair with Peter Shand Kydd. In Morton's book, he described how she remembered her father packing suitcases, her mother crunching across the gravel forecourt, and driving away through the gates of Park House. Shortly after, her father, John Spencer, won custody of both her and her three siblings. She was first educated at Riddlesworth Hall, and later attended boarding school at The New School at West Heath. In 1973, John Spencer began a relationship with Raine Legge, the Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of Alexander McCorquodale and Barbara Cartland. Lord Spencer and Lady Dartmouth were married at Caxton Hall, London, on 14 July 1976. As Countess Spencer, Raine was unpopular with her stepdaughter Lady Diana Spencer. However, media reports have suggested that at the time of her death, Diana was reconciled with her stepmother, while her relationship with her mother Frances Shand Kydd, had become strained. Diana received the title of Lady after her father inherited the title of Earl Spencer in 1975. Diana was often noted for her shyness while growing up, but she did take an interest in both music and dancing. She also had a great interest in children. After attending finishing school at the Institut Alpin Videmanette in Switzerland, she moved to London. She began working with children, eventually becoming a kindergarten teacher at the Young England School. Diana had apparently played with Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex as a child while her family rented Park House, an estate owned by Queen Elizabeth II.

Education

At the age of seven, Diana was sent to Riddlesworth Hall, an all-girls boarding school. While she was young, she attended a local public school. It was common practice for upper-class families to send their children to boarding schools at around age eight. Initially very homesick, Diana fell into the common boarding school routine. She did not shine academically, and was moved to West Heath Girls' School (later reorganised as The New School at West Heath) in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she was regarded as a poor student, having attempted and failed all of her O-levels twice. However, she showed a particular talent for music as an accomplished pianist. Her outstanding community spirit was recognised with an award from West Heath. In 1977, at the age of 16, she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland. At about that time, she first met her future husband, who was then dating her eldest sister, Lady Sarah. Diana reportedly excelled in swimming and diving, and longed to be a professional ballerina with the Royal Ballet. She studied ballet for a time, but then grew to 5'10", far too tall for the profession.

Diana moved to London before she turned seventeen, living in her mother's flat, as her mother then spent most of the year in Scotland. Soon afterwards, an apartment was purchased for £50,000 as an 18th birthday present, at Coleherne Court in Earls Court. She lived there until 1981 with three flatmates.

In London, she took an advanced cooking course at her mother's suggestion, although she never became an adroit cook, and worked as a dance instructor for youth, until a skiing accident caused her to miss three months of work. She then found employment as a playgroup (pre-preschool) assistant, did some cleaning work for her sister Sarah and several of her friends, and worked as a hostess at parties. Diana also spent time working as a nanny for an American family living in London.

Relationship

Prince Charles had previously been linked to Diana's elder sister Sarah, and in his early thirties he was under increasing pressure to marry. Under the Act of Settlement 1701, royals forfeit their succession rights to the Throne if they marry "papists" (Roman Catholics). Diana's Church of England faith, native Englishness, and lack of an obvious "past" appeared to render her a suitable royal bride both legally and socially.

Prince Charles had known Diana for several years, but he first took a serious interest in her as a potential bride during the summer of 1980, when they were guests at a country weekend, where she watched him play polo. The relationship developed as he invited her for a sailing weekend to Cowes aboard the royal yacht Britannia, followed by an invitation to Balmoral (the Royal Family's Scottish residence) to meet his family. There, Diana was well received by Queen Elizabeth II, by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and by the Queen Mother. The couple subsequently courted in London. The Prince proposed on 6 February 1981, and Diana accepted, but their engagement was kept secret for the next few weeks.

Engagement and wedding

thumb|right|Charles and Diana's wedding commemorated on a 1981 British [[Crown (British coin)|Crown]] Their engagement became official on 24 February 1981, after Diana selected a large £30,000 ring, £85,700 in today's terms, consisting of 14 diamonds surrounding a sapphire, similar to her mother's engagement ring. The ring was made by the then crown jewellers Garrard but, unusually for a member of the Royal Family, the ring was not unique and was, at the time, featured in Garrard's jewellery collection. The ring was later used in 2010 as the engagement ring of Kate Middleton, the wife of Diana's elder son Prince William.

Twenty-year-old Diana became The Princess of Wales when she married Charles on 29 July 1981 at St Paul's Cathedral, which offered more seating than Westminster Abbey, generally used for royal nuptials. It was widely billed as a "fairytale wedding", watched by a global television audience of 750 million while 600,000 people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of Diana en route to the ceremony. At the altar Diana accidentally reversed the order of Charles's first two names, saying ''Philip Charles Arthur George'' instead. She did not say that she would "obey" him; that traditional vow was left out at the couple's request, which caused some comment at the time. Diana wore a dress valued at £9000 with a 25-foot (8-metre) train. The couple's wedding cake was created by Belgian pastry chef S. G. Sender, who was known as the "cakemaker to the kings."

Children

On 5 November 1981, Diana's first pregnancy was officially announced, and she frankly discussed her pregnancy with members of the press corps. In the private Lindo Wing of St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, on 21 June 1982, Diana gave birth to her and Prince Charles's first son and heir, William Arthur Philip Louis. Amidst some media criticism, she decided to take William, still a baby, on her first major tours of Australia and New Zealand, but the decision was popularly applauded. By her own admission, Diana had not initially intended to take William until it was suggested by Malcolm Fraser, the Australian prime minister.

A second son, Henry Charles Albert David, was born about two years after William, on 15 September 1984. Diana asserted that she and Prince Charles were closest during her pregnancy with "Harry", as the younger prince was known. She was aware their second child was a boy, but did not share the knowledge with anyone else, including Prince Charles.

She was regarded by a biographer as a devoted and demonstrative mother. She rarely deferred to Prince Charles or to the Royal Family, and was often intransigent when it came to the children. She chose their first given names, dismissed a royal family nanny and engaged one of her own choosing, selected their schools and clothing, planned their outings and took them to school herself as often as her schedule permitted. She also negotiated her public duties around their timetables. from the mid-1980s, the Princess of Wales became increasingly associated with numerous charities. As Princess of Wales she was expected to visit hospitals, schools, etc., in the 20th-century model of royal patronage. Diana developed an intense interest in serious illnesses and health-related matters outside the purview of traditional royal involvement, including AIDS and leprosy. In addition, the Princess was the patroness of charities and organisations working with the homeless, youth, drug addicts and the elderly. From 1989, she was President of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. She also worked street corners to pay for food and for her children.

During her final year, Diana lent highly visible support to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a campaign that went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 after her death.

Problems and separation

During the early 1990s, the marriage of Diana and Charles fell apart, an event at first suppressed, then sensationalised, by the world media. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales allegedly spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for the marriage's demise.

The chronology of the break-up identifies reported difficulties between Charles and Diana as early as 1985. During 1986 Diana began an affair with Major James Hewitt, while Prince Charles turned to his former girlfriend, Camilla Shand, who had become Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Andrew Parker-Bowles. These affairs were exposed in May 1992 with the publication of ''Diana: Her True Story'', by Andrew Morton. The book, which also laid bare Diana's allegedly suicidal unhappiness, caused a media storm. This publication was followed during 1992 and 1993 by leaked tapes of telephone conversations which negatively reflected on both the royal antagonists. Transcripts of taped intimate conversations between Diana and James Gilbey were published by the ''Sun'' newspaper in Britain in August 1992. The article's title, "Squidgygate", referenced Gilbey's affectionate nickname for Diana. The next to surface, in November 1992, were the leaked "Camillagate" tapes, intimate exchanges between Charles and Camilla, published in ''Today'' and the ''Mirror'' newspapers.

In the meantime, rumours had begun to surface about Diana's relationship with James Hewitt, her former riding instructor. These would be brought into the open by the publication in 1994 of ''Princess in Love''.

In December 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced the Wales's "amicable separation" to the House of Commons, and the full Camillagate transcript was published a month later in the newspapers, in January 1993. On 3 December 1993, Diana announced her withdrawal from public life. Charles sought public understanding via a televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby on 29 June 1994. In this he confirmed his own extramarital affair with Camilla, saying that he had only rekindled their association in 1986, after his marriage to the Princess of Wales had "irretrievably broken down."

While she blamed Camilla Parker-Bowles for her marital troubles due to her previous relationship with Charles, Diana at some point began to believe Charles had other affairs. In October 1993 Diana wrote to a friend that she believed her husband was now in love with Tiggy Legge-Bourke and wanted to marry her. Legge-Bourke had been hired by Prince Charles as a young companion for his sons while they were in his care, and Diana was extremely resentful of Legge-Bourke and her relationship with the young princes.

Divorce

Diana was interviewed for the BBC current affairs show ''Panorama'' by journalist Martin Bashir; the interview was broadcast on 20 November 1995. In it, Diana asserted of Hewitt, "Yes, I loved him. Yes, I adored him." Of Camilla, she claimed "There were three of us in this marriage." For herself, she said "I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts." On Charles's suitability for kingship, she said: "Because I know the character I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him, and I don't know whether he could adapt to that."

In December 1995, the Queen asked Charles and Diana for "an early divorce", as a direct result of Diana's ''Panorama'' interview. This followed shortly after Diana's accusation that Tiggy Legge-Bourke had aborted Charles's child, after which Legge-Bourke instructed Peter Carter-Ruck to demand an apology. Two days before this story broke, Diana's secretary Patrick Jephson resigned, later writing Diana had "exulted in accusing Legge-Bourke of having had an abortion".

On 20 December 1995, Buckingham Palace publicly announced the Queen had sent letters to Charles and Diana advising them to divorce. The Queen's move was backed by the Prime Minister and by senior Privy Counsellors, and, according to the BBC, was decided after two weeks of talks. Prince Charles immediately agreed with the suggestion. In February Diana announced her agreement after negotiations with Prince Charles and representatives of the Queen, irritating Buckingham Palace by issuing her own announcement of a divorce agreement and its terms.

The divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996.

Diana received a lump sum settlement of around £17 million along with a clause standard in royal divorces preventing her from discussing the details.

Days before the decree absolute of divorce, Letters Patent were issued with general rules to regulate royal titles after divorce. In accordance, as she was no longer married to the Prince of Wales, Diana lost the style ''Her Royal Highness'' and instead was styled ''Diana, Princess of Wales''. Buckingham Palace issued a press release on the day of the decree absolute of divorce was issued, announcing Diana's change of title, but made it clear that Diana continued to be a British princess.

Almost a year before, according to Tina Brown, Prince Philip had warned Diana: "If you don't behave, my girl, we'll take your title away." Diana is said to have replied: "My title is a lot older than yours, Philip".

Buckingham Palace stated that Diana was still a member of the Royal Family, as she was the mother of the second- and third-in-line to the throne. This was confirmed by the Deputy Coroner of the Queen's Household, Baroness Butler-Sloss, after a pre-hearing on 8 January 2007: "I am satisfied that at her death, Diana, Princess of Wales continued to be considered as a member of the Royal Household." This appears to have been confirmed in the High Court judicial review matter of ''Al Fayed & Ors v Butler-Sloss''. In that case, three High Court judges accepted submissions that the "very name ‘Coroner to the Queen's Household’ gave the appearance of partiality in the context of inquests into the deaths of two people, ''one of whom was a member of the Family'' and the other was not."

Personal life after divorce

After the divorce, Diana retained her double apartment on the north side of Kensington Palace, which she had shared with Prince Charles since the first year of their marriage, and it remained her home until her death.

Diana dated the respected heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, from Jhelum, Pakistan, who was called "the love of her life" after her death by many of her closest friends, for almost two years, before Khan ended the relationship. Khan was intensely private and the relationship was conducted in secrecy, with Diana lying to members of the press who questioned her about it. Khan was from a traditional Pakistani family who expected him to marry from a related Muslim clan, and their differences, which were not just religious, became too much for Khan. According to Khan's testimonial at the inquest for her death, it was Diana herself, not Khan, who ended their relationship in a late-night meeting in Hyde Park, which adjoins the grounds of Kensington Palace, in June 1997.

Within a month Diana had begun dating Dodi Al-Fayed, son of her host that summer, Mohamed Al-Fayed. Diana had considered taking her sons that summer on a holiday to the Hamptons on Long Island, New York, but security officials had prevented it. After deciding against a trip to Thailand, she accepted Fayed's invitation to join his family in the south of France, where his compound and large security detail would not cause concern to the Royal Protection squad. Mohamed Al-Fayed bought a multi-million pound yacht, the Jonikal, a 60-metre yacht belonging to Mohammed al-Fayed on which to entertain the princess and her sons.

Landmines

In January 1997, pictures of the Princess touring an Angolan minefield in a ballistic helmet and flak jacket were seen worldwide. It was during this campaign that some accused the Princess of meddling in politics and declared her a 'loose cannon'. In August 1997, just days before her death, she visited Bosnia with Jerry White and Ken Rutherford of the Landmine Survivors Network. Her interest in landmines was focused on the injuries they create, often to children, long after a conflict is over.

She is believed to have influenced the signing, though only after her death, of the Ottawa Treaty, which created an international ban on the use of anti-personnel landmines. Introducing the Second Reading of the Landmines Bill 1998 to the British House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, paid tribute to Diana's work on landmines:

All Honourable Members will be aware from their postbags of the immense contribution made by Diana, Princess of Wales to bringing home to many of our constituents the human costs of landmines. The best way in which to record our appreciation of her work, and the work of NGOs that have campaigned against landmines, is to pass the Bill, and to pave the way towards a global ban on landmines.

The United Nations appealed to the nations which produced and stockpiled the largest numbers of landmines (United States, China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia) to sign the Ottawa Treaty forbidding their production and use, for which Diana had campaigned. Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said that landmines remained "a deadly attraction for children, whose innate curiosity and need for play often lure them directly into harm's way". ''

Death

On 31 August 1997, Diana was fatally injured in a car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, which also caused the death of her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul, acting security manager of the Hôtel Ritz Paris. Millions of people watched the princess' funeral.

Conspiracy theories and inquest

The initial French judicial investigation concluded that the accident was caused by Henri Paul's drunken loss of control. From February 1999, Dodi's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed (the owner of the Paris Ritz, for which Paul had worked) maintained that the crash had been planned, accusing MI6 as well as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Inquests in London during 2004 and 2007 finally attributed the accident to grossly negligent driving by Henri Paul and to the pursuing paparazzi. The following day Al-Fayed announced he would end his 10-year campaign for the sake of the late Princess of Wales's children.

Tribute, funeral, and burial

The sudden and unexpected death of a very popular royal figure Diana, a British princess brought statements from senior figures worldwide and many tributes by members of the public. People left public offerings of flowers, candles, cards and personal messages outside Kensington Palace for many months.

Diana's funeral took place in Westminster Abbey on 6 September 1997. The previous day Queen Elizabeth II had paid tribute to her in a live television broadcast. Her sons, the Princes William and Harry, walked in the funeral procession behind her coffin, along with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh, and with Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer. Lord Spencer said of his sister: "She proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.".

Memorials

Immediately after her death, many sites around the world became briefly ''ad hoc'' memorials to Diana, where the public left flowers and other tributes. The largest was outside the gates of Kensington Palace. Permanent memorials include:

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Gardens in Regent Centre Gardens Kirkintilloch

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, London, opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens, London.

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk, a circular path between Kensington Gardens, Green Park, Hyde Park and St. James's Park, London

In addition, there are two memorials inside Harrods department store, at the time owned by Dodi Al-Fayed's father Mohamed Al-Fayed, in London. The first memorial consists of photos of the two behind a pyramid-shaped display that holds a wine glass still smudged with lipstick from Diana's last dinner as well as an 'engagement' ring Dodi purchased the day before they died. The second, unveiled in 2005 and titled "Innocent Victims", is a bronze statue of the two dancing on a beach beneath the wings of an albatross. The Flame of Liberty, erected in 1989 on the Place de l'Alma in Paris, above the entrance to the tunnel in which the fatal crash later occurred, has become an unofficial memorial to Diana.

Memorabilia

Following Diana's death, the Diana Memorial Fund was granted intellectual property rights over her image. In 1998, after refusing the Franklin Mint an official license to produce Diana merchandise, the fund sued the company, accusing it of illegally selling Diana dolls, plates and jewellery. In California, where the initial case was tried, a suit to preserve the ''right of publicity'' may be filed on behalf of a dead person, but only if that person is a Californian. The Memorial Fund therefore filed the lawsuit on behalf of the estate and, upon losing the case, were required to pay the Franklin Mint's legal costs of £3 million which, combined with other fees, caused the Memorial Fund to freeze their grants to charities.

In 1998, Azermarka issued postage stamps with both Azeri and English captions, commemorating Diana. The English text reads "Diana, Princess of Wales. The Princess that captured people's hearts".

In 2003, the Franklin Mint counter-sued; the case was eventually settled in 2004, with the fund agreeing to an out-of-court settlement, which was donated to mutually agreed charitable causes.

Today, pursuant to this lawsuit, two California companies continue to sell Diana memorabilia without the need for any permission from Diana's estate: the Franklin Mint and Princess Ring LLC.

Diana in contemporary art

Diana has been depicted in contemporary art since her death. Some of the artworks have referenced the conspiracy theories, as well as paying tribute to Diana's compassion and acknowledging her perceived victimhood.

In July 1999, Tracey Emin created a number of monoprint drawings featuring textual references about Diana's public and private life, for ''Temple of Diana'', a themed exhibition at The Blue Gallery, London. Works such as ''They Wanted You To Be Destroyed'' (1999) related to Diana's bulimia, while others included affectionate texts such as ''Love Was On Your Side'' and Diana's ''Dress with puffy sleeves''. Another text praised her selflessness - ''The things you did to help other people'', showing Diana in protective clothing walking through a minefield in Angola - while another referenced the conspiracy theories. Of her drawings, Emin maintained "They're quite sentimental . . . and there's nothing cynical about it whatsoever."

In 2005 Martin Sastre premiered during the Venice Biennial the film Diana: The Rose Conspiracy. This fictional work starts with the world discovering Diana alive and enjoying a happy undercover new life in a dangerous favela on the outskirts of Montevideo. Shot on a genuine Uruguayan slum and using a Diana impersonator from São Paulo, the film was selected among the Venice Biennial's best works by the Italian Art Critics Association.

In 2007, following an earlier series referencing the conspiracy theories, Stella Vine created a series of Diana paintings for her first major solo exhibition at Modern Art Oxford gallery. Vine intended to portray Diana's combined strength and vulnerability as well as her closeness to her two sons. The works, all completed in 2007, included ''Diana branches'', ''Diana family picnic'', ''Diana veil'' and ''Diana pram'', which incorporated the quotation "I vow to thee my country". Immodesty Blaize said she had been entranced by ''Diana crash'', finding it "by turns horrifying, bemusing and funny". Vine asserted her own abiding attraction to "the beauty and the tragedy of Diana's life".

Later events

On 13 July 2006 Italian magazine ''Chi'' published photographs showing the princess amid the wreckage of the car crash, despite an unofficial blackout on such photographs being published. The editor of ''Chi'' defended his decision by saying that he published the photographs simply because they had not been previously seen, and that he felt the images are not disrespectful to the memory of the Princess. Fresh controversy arose over the issue of these photographs when Britain's Channel 4 broadcast them during a documentary in June 2007.

1 July 2007 marked a concert at Wembley Stadium. The event, organised by the Princes William and Harry, celebrated the 46th anniversary of their mother's birth and occurred a few weeks before the 10th anniversary of her death on 31 August.

The 2007 docudrama ''Diana: Last Days of a Princess'' details the final two months of her life.

On an October 2007 episode of ''The Chaser's War on Everything'', Andrew Hansen mocked Diana in his "Eulogy Song", which immediately created considerable controversy in the Australian media.

Contemporary opinions

From her engagement to the Prince of Wales in 1981 until her death in 1997, Diana was an iconic presence on the world stage, often described as the ''world's most photographed woman''. She was noted for her compassion, style, charisma, and high-profile charity work, as well as her difficult marriage to Prince Charles.

Diana was revealed to be a major source behind Andrew Morton's ''Diana: Her True Story'', which had portrayed her as being wronged by the House of Windsor. Morton instanced Diana's claim that she attempted suicide while pregnant by falling down a series of stairs and that Charles had left her to go riding. Tina Brown opined that it was not a suicide attempt because she would not intentionally have tried to harm the unborn child.

Royal biographer Sarah Bradford commented, "The only cure for her (Diana's) suffering would have been the love of the Prince of Wales, which she so passionately desired, something which would always be denied her. His was the final rejection; the way in which he consistently denigrated her reduced her to despair." Diana herself commented, "My husband made me feel inadequate in every possible way that each time I came up for air he pushed me down again ..."

Diana herself admitted to struggling with depression, self-injury, and bulimia, which recurred throughout her adult life. One biographer suggested that Diana suffered from borderline personality disorder.

In 2007, Tina Brown wrote a biography about Diana as a "restless and demanding shopaholic who was obsessed with her public image" as well as being a "spiteful, manipulative, media-savvy neurotic." Brown also claims that Diana married Charles for his power and had a romantic relationship with Dodi Fayed to anger the royal family, with no intention of marrying him.

Titles, styles, honours, and arms

Name	The Princess of Wales (before her divorce)
Dipstyle	Her Royal Highness
Offstyle	Your Royal Highness
Altstyle	Ma'am }}

Titles and styles

1 July 1961 – 9 June 1975: ''The Honourable'' Diana Frances Spencer

9 June 1975 – 29 July 1981: ''The Lady'' Diana Frances Spencer

29 July 1981 – 28 August 1996: ''Her Royal Highness'' The Princess of Wales

*''in Scotland'': 29 July 1981 – 28 August 1996: ''Her Royal Highness'' The Duchess of Rothesay

28 August 1996 – 31 August 1997: Diana, Princess of Wales

Posthumously, as in life, she is most popularly referred to as "Princess Diana", a title she never held. Still, she is sometimes referred to (according to the tradition of using maiden names after death) in the media as "Lady Diana Spencer", or simply as "Lady Di". After Tony Blair's famous speech she was also often referred to as the ''People's Princess''.

Diana's full title, while married, was ''Her Royal Highness The Princess Charles Philip Arthur George, Princess of Wales & Countess of Chester, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, Countess of Carrick, Baroness of Renfrew, Lady of the Isles, Princess of Scotland''.

Before her divorce and until her death Diana, Princess of Wales continued to be a Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland without the style Royal Highness. As the mother of the future Sovereign, she was accorded the same precedence she enjoyed whilst being married to the Prince of Wales. This situation made the Princess the first non royal British princess of all history.

Honours

British honours

Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II

Foreign honours

Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown, bestowed by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1982

Arms

Notes	As the wife of the Prince of Wales, Diana used his arms impaled (side by side) with those of her father.
Crest	Coronet of the Prince of Wales
Escutcheon	Quarterly 1st and 4th gules three lions passant guardant in pale or armed and langed azure 2nd or a lion rampant gules armed and langued azure within a double tressure flory counterflory of the second 3rd azure a harp or stringed argent overall an escutcheon of Coat of Arms of the Principality of Wales, the whole differenced with a label of three points argent; impaled with a shield quarterly 1st and 4th Argent 2nd and 3rd Gules a fret Or overall a bend Sable charged with three escallops Argent.
Supporters	Dexter a lion rampant gardant Or crowned with the coronet of the Prince of Wales Proper, sinister a griffin winged and unguled Or, gorged with a coronet Or composed of crosses patée and fleurs de lis a chain affixed thereto passing between the forelegs and reflexed over the back also Or
Motto	DIEU DEFEND LE DROIT''(God defends the right)''
Previous versions	After her divorce and before her death, Diana used the arms of her father, undifferenced, crowned by a royal coronet. }}

Legacy

Diana's interest in supporting and helping young people led to the establishment of the Diana Memorial Award, awarded to youths who have demonstrated the unselfish devotion and commitment to causes advocated by the Princess.

In 2002, Diana was ranked 3rd in the 100 Greatest Britons poll, outranking Queen Elizabeth II and other British monarchs.

On 30 August 2007 Peruvian photographer Mario Testino announced that on 20 November he would auction a signed photo of Diana for the benefit of the Peru earthquake (in London by Phillips de Pury & Co). The photo appeared in a 1997 ''Vanity Fair'' issue, and shows Diana wearing a black dress. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground was erected in Kensington Gardens at a cost of £1.7 million.

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk was dedicated to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales. It stretches between Kensington Gardens, Green Park, Hyde Park and St. James's Park.

On 6 July 2004 Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain. It is located in the south-west corner of Hyde Park in London.

In 1999 the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Award for Inspirational Young People was established.

Diana's family announced in 2010 they would auction art and horse-drawn carriages that once belonged to Althorp House. Fashion designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel, responsible for much of Diana's clothes, including her wedding dress, announced in May 2010 they were auctioning 30 lots of clothing, measurements, and related items.

Ancestry

{{ahnentafel-compact5 |style=font-size: 90%; line-height: 110%; |border=1 |boxstyle=padding-top: 0; padding-bottom: 0; |boxstyle_1=background-color: #fcc; |boxstyle_2=background-color: #fb9; |boxstyle_3=background-color: #ffc; |boxstyle_4=background-color: #bfc; |boxstyle_5=background-color: #9fe; |1= 1. Diana, Princess of Wales |2= 2. John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer |3= 3. Frances Roche |4= 4. Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer |5= 5. Cynthia Hamilton |6= 6. Maurice Roche, 4th Baron Fermoy |7= 7. Ruth Sylvia Gill |8= 8. Charles Spencer, 6th Earl Spencer |9= 9. Margaret Baring |10= 10. James Hamilton, 3rd Duke of Abercorn |11= 11. Rosalind Cecilia Bingham |12= 12. James Roche, 3rd Baron Fermoy |13= 13. Frances Ellen Work |14= 14. William Smith Gill |15= 15. Ruth Littlejohn |16= 16. Frederick Spencer, 4th Earl Spencer |17= 17. Adelaide Horatia Seymour |18= 18. Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke |19= 19. Louisa Emily Bulteel |20= 20. James Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Abercorn |21= 21. Maria Anna Curzon-Howe |22= 22. Charles Bingham, 4th Earl of Lucan |23= 23. Cecilia Catherine Gordon-Lennox |24= 24. Edmond Roche, 1st Baron Fermoy |25= 25. Elizabeth Caroline Boothby |26= 26. Franklin H. Work |27= 27. Ellen Wood |28= 28. Alexander Ogston Gill |29= 29. Barbara Smith Marr |30= 30. David Littlejohn |31= 31. Jane Crombie }}

Issue

29 April 2011 15 September 1984

style="background:#708090;"	Name !! style="background:#708090;">Birth !! style="background:#708090;" colspan="2"	Marriage	Issue
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge	21 June 1982	|	Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge>Catherine Middleton
Prince Harry of Wales	|

See also

Burrell affair

Concert for Diana

Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund

Diana, Princess of Wales: Tribute

Diana - The People's Princess (exhibition)

Squidgygate

The New School at West Heath (Mr Al-Fayed's memorial to Diana)

Elisabeth of Bavaria

Notes

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Concert for Diana

Diana "Princess Di" Spencer at Find A Grave

Princess Diana: The Best Photos — slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Trampling on Diana's grave: Outrage as C4 to show image of princess dying

DIANA – The crash investigator and the mystery driver

9th Earl Spencer's Eulogy for Princess Diana Text, audio, video at American Rhethoric

Prince Harry's Memorial Remarks on the 10 Year Anniversary of Diana's Death Text, audio, video at American Rhethoric

Funeral and Eulogies for Princess Diana at Internet-esq.com.

Prince Harry's eulogy to Princess Diana delivered on 8/31/07

theworkcontinues.org – Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund official website of Theworkcontinues.org.

"Diana Remembered" at People magazine

H.M. Coroner of Surrey: The Official Inquest Into The Deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales & Dodi Al Fayed at Surreycoroner.info.

(Scott Baker) Inquests into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed at Scottbaker-inquests.gov.uk.

Lord Stevens' Operation Paget Report Into The Death of Diana, Princess of Wales—published 14 December 2006 at Police.uk.

The Goddess of Domestic Tribulations by Theodore Dalrymple Essay on the cultural significance of Princess Diana. Theodore Dalrymple. ''City Journal'' at City-journal.com.

Public Tribute and Memorial website. Lastingtribute.com – Lasting Tribute

Memorial Page on Find a Grave Findagrave.com

"Ten Years On: Why Princess Diana Mattered". ''TIME''.

BBC mini-site Diana One Year On pictures of Diana, Panorama interview video extracts, coverage of the funeral, how the UK newspapers reported her death

Diana: timeline at mykensington.co.uk

Category:British princesses by marriage Category:British duchesses by marriage Category:British countesses Category:British baronesses Category:Princesses of Wales Category:British humanitarians Category:Daughters of British earls Category:English Anglicans Category:Mine action Category:House of Windsor Category:Mountbatten-Windsor family Category:People from King's Lynn and West Norfolk (district) Category:People from Northamptonshire Category:Recipients of the Order of the Crown (Netherlands) Category:Road accident deaths in France Category:Spencer-Churchill family Category:1961 births Category:1997 deaths Category:Folk saints

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Coordinates	21°18′32″N157°49′34″N
name	John Lennon
alt	A bearded, bespectacled man in his late twenties, with long dark brown hair and wearing a loose-fitting pajama shirt, sings and plays an acoustic guitar. White flowers are visible behind and to the right of him.
background	solo_singer
birth name	John Winston Lennon
birth date	October 09, 1940
birth place	Liverpool, England, UK
death date	December 08, 1980
death place	New York, New York, US
instrument	Vocals, guitar, piano, harmonica, harmonium, electronic organ, six-string bass
genre	Rock, pop
occupation	Musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, artist, writer
years active	1957–75, 1980
label	Parlophone, Capitol, Apple, EMI, Geffen, Polydor
associated acts	The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Plastic Ono Band, The Dirty Mac, Yoko Ono
notable instruments	Rickenbacker 325Epiphone CasinoGibson J-160E }}

John Winston Lennon (9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Along with fellow Beatle Paul McCartney, he formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved as a teenager in the skiffle craze; his first band, The Quarrymen, evolved into The Beatles in 1960. As the group disintegrated towards the end of the decade, Lennon embarked on a solo career that produced the critically acclaimed albums ''John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'' and ''Imagine'', and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". After his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon. Lennon disengaged himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his infant son Sean, but re-emerged in 1980 with a new album, ''Double Fantasy''. He was murdered three weeks after its release.

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, his drawings, on film, and in interviews, becoming controversial through his political and peace activism. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while some of his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement.

As of 2010, Lennon's solo album sales in the United States exceed 14 million units, and as writer, co-writer or performer, he is responsible for 25 number-one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, a BBC poll on the 100 Greatest Britons voted him eighth, and in 2008, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all-time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

History

1940–57: Early years

Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman who was away at the time of his son's birth. He was named John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother, but the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944. When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia—by then pregnant with another man's child—rejected the idea. After her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpool's Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946, Lennon's father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, 'Bobby' Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her. It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again.

Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, he lived with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own, at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton. His aunt bought him volumes of short stories, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles. Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and when he was 11 years old he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, and taught him the banjo, learning how to play "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino.

In September 1980 he talked about his family and his rebellious nature: }}

He regularly visited his cousin, Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood. Seven years Lennon's senior, Parkes took him on trips, and to local cinemas. During the school holidays, Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, often travelling to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby. After Parkes's family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, "John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time John was nine years old until he was about 16." He was 14 years old when his uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955 (aged 52).

Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School. From September 1952 to 1957, after passing his Eleven-Plus exam, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, and was described by Harvey at the time as, "A happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad." He often drew comical cartoons which appeared in his own self-made school magazine called ''The Daily Howl'', but despite his artistic talent, his school reports were damning: "Certainly on the road to failure ... hopeless ... rather a clown in class ... wasting other pupils' time."

His mother bought him his first guitar in 1956, an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she "lent" her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house, and not Mimi's, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son's musical aspirations. As Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, she hoped he would grow bored with music, often telling him, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it". On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17 years old, his mother, walking home after visiting the Smiths' house, was struck by a car and killed.

Lennon failed all his GCE O-level examinations, and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art only after his aunt and headmaster intervened. Once at the college, he started wearing Teddy Boy clothes and acquired a reputation for disrupting classes and ridiculing teachers. As a result, he was excluded from the painting class, then the graphic arts course, and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour, which included sitting on a nude model's lap during a life drawing class. He failed an annual exam, despite help from fellow student and future wife Cynthia Powell, and was "thrown out of the college before his final year."

1957–70: The Quarrymen to The Beatles

1957–65: Formation, commercial breakout, and touring years

The Beatles evolved from Lennon's first band, the Quarrymen. Named after Quarry Bank High School, the group was established by him in September 1956 when he was 15, and began as a skiffle group. By the summer of 1957 the Quarrymen played a "spirited set of songs" made up of half skiffle, and half rock and roll. Lennon first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second performance, held in Woolton on 6 July at the St. Peter's Church garden fête, after which McCartney was asked to join the band.

McCartney says that Aunt Mimi: "was very aware that John's friends were lower class", and would often patronise him when he arrived to visit Lennon. According to Paul's brother Mike, McCartney's father was also disapproving, declaring Lennon would get his son "into trouble"; although he later allowed the fledgling band to rehearse in the McCartneys' front room at 20 Forthlin Road. During this time, the 18-year-old Lennon wrote his first song, "Hello Little Girl", a UK top 10 hit for The Fourmost nearly five years later.

George Harrison joined the band as lead guitarist, even though Lennon thought Harrison (at 14 years old) was too young to join the band, so McCartney engineered a second audition on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, where Harrison played "Raunchy" for Lennon. Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, later joined as bassist. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became "The Beatles" in early 1960. In August that year The Beatles, engaged for a 48-night residency in Hamburg, Germany, and desperately in need of a drummer, asked Pete Best to join them. Lennon was now 19, and his aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with him to continue his art studies instead. After the first Hamburg residency, the band accepted another in April 1961, and a third in April 1962. Like the other band members, Lennon was introduced to Preludin while in Hamburg, and regularly took the drug, as well as amphetamines, as a stimulant during their long, overnight performances.

Brian Epstein, The Beatles' manager from 1962, had no prior experience of artist management, but nevertheless had a strong influence on their early dress code and attitude on stage. Lennon initially resisted his attempts to encourage the band to present a professional appearance, but eventually complied, saying, "I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me". McCartney took over on bass after Sutcliffe decided to stay in Hamburg, and drummer Ringo Starr replaced Best, completing the four-piece line-up that would endure until the group's break-up in 1970. The band's first single, "Love Me Do", was released in October 1962 and reached #17 on the British charts. They recorded their debut album, ''Please Please Me'', in under 10 hours on 11 February 1963, a day when Lennon was suffering the effects of a cold, which is evident in the vocal on the last song to be recorded that day, Twist and Shout. The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership yielded eight of its fourteen tracks. With few exceptions—one being the album title itself—Lennon had yet to bring his love of wordplay to bear on his song lyrics, saying: "We were just writing songs ... pop songs with no more thought of them than that–to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant". In a 1987 interview, McCartney said that the other Beatles idolised John: "He was like our own little Elvis ... We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest".

The Beatles achieved mainstream success in the UK during the beginning of 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During their Royal Variety Show performance, attended by the Queen Mother and other British royalty, Lennon poked fun at his audience: "For our next song, I'd like to ask for your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands ... and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery." After a year of Beatlemania in the UK, the group's historic February 1964 US debut appearance on ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' marked their breakthrough to international stardom. A two-year period of constant touring, moviemaking, and songwriting followed, during which Lennon wrote two books, ''In His Own Write'' and ''A Spaniard in the Works''. The Beatles received recognition from the British Establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1965.

Lennon grew concerned that fans attending Beatles' concerts were unable to hear the music above the screaming of fans, and that the band's musicianship was beginning to suffer as a result. Lennon's "Help!" expressed his own feelings in 1965: "I ''meant'' it ... It was me singing 'help'". He had put on weight (he would later refer to this as his "Fat Elvis" period), and felt he was subconsciously seeking change. The following January he was unknowingly introduced to LSD when a dentist, hosting a dinner party attended by Lennon, Harrison and their wives, spiked the guests' coffee with the drug. When they wanted to leave, their host revealed what they had taken, and strongly advised them not to leave the house because of the likely effects. Later, in an elevator at a nightclub, they all believed it was on fire: "We were all screaming ... hot and hysterical." A few months later in March, during an interview with ''Evening Standard'' reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now—I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity." The comment went virtually unnoticed in England but caused great offence in the US when quoted by a magazine there five months later. The furore that followed—burning of Beatles' records, Ku Klux Klan activity, and threats against Lennon—contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.

1966–70: Studio years, break-up and solo work

Deprived of the routine of live performances after their final commercial concert on 29 August 1966, Lennon felt lost and considered leaving the band. Since his involuntary introduction to LSD in January, he had made increasing use of the drug, and was almost constantly under its influence for much of the year." According to biographer Ian MacDonald, Lennon's continuous experience with LSD during the year brought him "close to erasing his identity". 1967 saw the release of "Strawberry Fields Forever", hailed by ''TIME'' magazine for its "astonishing inventiveness", and the group's landmark album ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'', which revealed Lennon's lyrics contrasting strongly with the simple love songs of the Lennon–McCartney's early years.

In August, after having been introduced to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group attended a weekend of personal instruction at his Transcendental Meditation seminar in Bangor, Wales, and were informed of Epstein's death during the seminar. "I knew we were in trouble then", Lennon said later. "I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared". They later travelled to Maharishi's ashram in India for further guidance, where they composed most of the songs for ''The Beatles'' and ''Abbey Road''.

The anti-war, black comedy ''How I Won the War'', featuring Lennon's only appearance in a non–Beatles' full-length film, was shown in cinemas in October 1967. McCartney organised the group's first post-Epstein project, the self-written, -produced and -directed television film ''Magical Mystery Tour'', released in December that year. While the film itself proved to be their first critical flop, its soundtrack release, featuring Lennon's acclaimed, Lewis Carroll-inspired "I am the Walrus", was a success. With Epstein gone, the band members became increasingly involved in business activities, and in February 1968 they formed Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation comprising Apple Records and several other subsidiary companies. Lennon described the venture as an attempt to achieve, "artistic freedom within a business structure", but his increased drug experimentation and growing preoccupation with Yoko Ono, and McCartney's own marriage plans, left Apple in need of professional management. Lennon asked Lord Beeching to take on the role, but he declined, advising Lennon to go back to making records. Lennon approached Allen Klein, who had managed The Rolling Stones and other bands during the British Invasion. Klein was appointed as Apple’s chief executive by Lennon, Harrison and Starr, but McCartney never signed the management contract.

At the end of 1968, Lennon featured in the film ''The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus'' (not released until 1996) in the role of a Dirty Mac band member. The supergroup, comprising Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell, also backed a vocal performance by Ono in the film. Lennon and Ono were married on 20 March 1969, and soon released a series of 14 lithographs called "Bag One" depicting scenes from their honeymoon, eight of which were deemed indecent and most of which were banned and confiscated. Lennon's creative focus continued to move beyond The Beatles and between 1968 and 1969 he and Ono recorded three albums of experimental music together: ''Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins'' (known more for its cover than for its music), ''Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions'' and ''Wedding Album''. In 1969 they formed The Plastic Ono Band, releasing ''Live Peace in Toronto 1969''. In protest at Britain's involvement in the Nigerian Civil War, Lennon returned his MBE medal to the Queen, though this had no effect on his MBE status, which could not be renounced. Between 1969 and 1970 Lennon released the singles "Give Peace a Chance" (widely adopted as an anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969), "Cold Turkey" (documenting his withdrawal symptoms after he became addicted to heroin) and "Instant Karma!".

Lennon left the group in September 1969, and agreed not to inform the media while the band renegotiated their recording contract, but he was outraged that McCartney publicised his own departure on releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon's reaction was, "Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!" He later wrote, "I started the band. I disbanded it. It's as simple as that." In later interviews with ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, he revealed his bitterness towards McCartney, saying, "I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record." He spoke too of the hostility he perceived the other members had towards Ono, and of how he, Harrison, and Starr "got fed up with being sidemen for Paul ... After Brian Epstein died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us when we went round in circles?"

1970–80: Solo career

1970–72: Initial solo success and activism

In 1970, Lennon and Ono went through primal therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov in Los Angeles, California. Designed to release emotional pain from early childhood, the therapy entailed two half-days a week with Janov for four months; he had wanted to treat the couple for longer, but they felt no need to continue and returned to London. Lennon's emotional debut solo album, ''John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'' (1970), was received with high praise. Critic Greil Marcus remarked, "John's singing in the last verse of 'God' may be the finest in all of rock." The album featured the songs "Mother", in which Lennon confronted his feelings of childhood rejection, and the Dylanesque "Working Class Hero", a bitter attack against the bourgeois social system which, due to the lyric "you're still fucking peasants", fell foul of broadcasters. The same year, Tariq Ali's revolutionary political views, expressed when he interviewed Lennon, inspired the singer to write "Power to the People". Lennon also became involved with Ali during a protest against ''Oz'' magazine's prosecution for alleged obscenity. Lennon denounced the proceedings as "disgusting fascism", and he and Ono (as Elastic Oz Band) released the single "God Save Us/Do the Oz" and joined marches in support of the magazine.

With Lennon's next album, ''Imagine'' (1971), critical response was more guarded. ''Rolling Stone'' reported that "it contains a substantial portion of good music" but warned of the possibility that "his posturings will soon seem not merely dull but irrelevant". The album's title track would become an anthem for anti-war movements, while another, "How Do You Sleep?", was a musical attack on McCartney in response to lyrics from ''Ram'' that Lennon felt, and McCartney later confirmed, were directed at him and Ono. However, Lennon softened his stance in the mid-1970s and said he had written "How Do You Sleep?" about himself. He said in 1980: "I used my resentment against Paul ... to create a song ... not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta ... I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and The Beatles, and the relationship with Paul, to write 'How Do You Sleep'. I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time".

Lennon and Ono moved to New York in August 1971, and in December released "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)". To advertise the single, they paid for billboards in 12 cities around the world which declared, in the national language, "WAR IS OVER—IF YOU WANT IT". The new year saw the Nixon Administration take what it called a "strategic counter-measure" against Lennon's anti-war propaganda, embarking on what would be a four-year attempt to deport him: embroiled in a continuing legal battle, he was denied permanent residency in the US until 1976.

Recorded as a collaboration with Ono and with backing from the New York band Elephant's Memory, ''Some Time in New York City'' was released in 1972. Containing songs about women's rights, race relations, Britain's role in Northern Ireland, and Lennon's problems obtaining a green card, the album was poorly received—unlistenable, according to one critic. "Woman Is the Nigger of the World", released as a US single from the album the same year, was televised on 11 May, on ''The Dick Cavett Show''. Many radio stations refused to broadcast the song because of the word "nigger". Lennon and Ono gave two benefit concerts with Elephant's Memory and guests in New York in aid of patients at the Willowbrook State School mental facility. Staged at Madison Square Garden on 30 August 1972, they were his last full-length concert appearances.

1973–75: "Lost weekend"

While Lennon was recording ''Mind Games'' (1973), he and Ono decided to separate. The ensuing 18-month period apart, which he later called his "lost weekend", was spent in Los Angeles and New York in the company of May Pang. ''Mind Games'', credited to the "Plastic U.F.Ono Band", was released in November 1973. Lennon also contributed "I'm the Greatest", to Starr's album ''Ringo'' (1973), released the same month. (an alternate take, from the same 1973 ''Ringo'' sessions, with Lennon providing a guide vocal, appears on ''John Lennon Anthology'').

In early 1974, Lennon was drinking heavily and his alcohol-fuelled antics with Harry Nilsson made headlines. Two widely publicised incidents occurred at The Troubadour club in March, the first when Lennon placed a menstruation "towel" on his forehead and scuffled with a waitress, and the second, two weeks later, when Lennon and Nilsson were ejected from the same club after heckling the Smothers Brothers. Lennon decided to produce Nilsson's album ''Pussy Cats'' and Pang rented an Los Angeles beach house for all the musicians but after a month of further debauchery, with the recording sessions in chaos, Lennon moved to New York with Pang to finish work on the album. In April, Lennon had produced the Mick Jagger song "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)" which was, for contractual reasons, to remain unreleased for more than 30 years. Pang supplied the recording for its eventual inclusion on ''The Very Best of Mick Jagger'' (2007).

Settled back in New York, Lennon recorded the album ''Walls and Bridges''. Released in October 1974, it yielded his only number-one single in his lifetime, "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", featuring Elton John on backing vocals and piano. A second single from the album, "#9 Dream", followed before the end of the year. Starr's ''Goodnight Vienna'' (1974) again saw assistance from Lennon, who wrote the title track and played piano. On 28 November, Lennon made a surprise guest appearance at Elton John's Thanksgiving concert at Madison Square Garden, in fulfilment of his promise to join the singer in a live show if "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night"—a song whose commercial potential Lennon had doubted—reached number one. Lennon performed the song along with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "I Saw Her Standing There", which he introduced as "a song by an old estranged fiancee of mine called Paul".

Lennon co-wrote "Fame", David Bowie's first US number one, and provided guitar and backing vocals for the January 1975 recording. The same month, Elton John topped the charts with his cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", featuring Lennon on guitar and back-up vocals. He and Ono were reunited shortly afterwards. Lennon released ''Rock 'n' Roll'' (1975), an album of cover songs, in February. "Stand By Me", taken from the album and a US and UK hit, became his last single for five years. He made what would be his final stage appearance in the ATV special ''A Salute to Lew Grade'', recorded on 18 April and televised in June. Playing acoustic guitar, and backed by an eight-piece band, Lennon performed two songs from ''Rock 'n' Roll'' ("Stand By Me", which was not broadcast, and "Slippin' and Slidin'") followed by "Imagine".

1975–80: Retirement and return

With the birth of his second son Sean on 9 October 1975, Lennon took on the role of househusband, beginning what would be a five-year hiatus from the music industry during which he gave all his attention to his family. Within the month, he fulfilled his contractual obligation to EMI/Capitol for one more album by releasing ''Shaved Fish'', a compilation album of previously recorded tracks. He devoted himself to Sean, rising at 6 am daily to plan and prepare his meals and to spend time with him. He wrote "Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Starr's ''Ringo's Rotogravure'' (1976), performing on the track in June in what would be his last recording session until 1980. He formally announced his break from music in Tokyo in 1977, saying, "we have basically decided, without any great decision, to be with our baby as much as we can until we feel we can take time off to indulge ourselves in creating things outside of the family." During his career break he created several series of drawings, and drafted a book containing a mix of autobiographical material and what he termed "mad stuff", all of which would be published posthumously.

He emerged from retirement in October 1980 with the single "(Just Like) Starting Over", followed the next month by the album ''Double Fantasy'', which contained songs written during a journey to Bermuda on a 43-foot sailing boat the previous June, that reflected Lennon's fulfillment in his new-found stable family life. Sufficient additional material was recorded for a planned follow-up album ''Milk and Honey'' (released posthumously in 1984). Released jointly with Ono, ''Double Fantasy'' was not well received, drawing comments such as ''Melody Maker'''s "indulgent sterility ... a godawful yawn".

8 December 1980: Death

At around 10:50 pm on 8 December 1980, as Lennon and Ono returned to their New York apartment in The Dakota, Mark David Chapman shot Lennon in the back four times at the entrance to the building. Lennon was taken to the emergency room of the nearby Roosevelt Hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:07 pm. Earlier that evening, Lennon had autographed a copy of ''Double Fantasy'' for Chapman.

Ono issued a statement the next day, saying "There is no funeral for John", ending it with the words, "John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him." His body was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Ono scattered his ashes in New York's Central Park, where the Strawberry Fields memorial was later created. Chapman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years to life; as of 2011, he remains in prison, having been denied parole six times.

Personal relationships

Cynthia Lennon

Lennon and Cynthia Powell met in 1957 as fellow students at the Liverpool College of Art. Although being scared of Lennon's attitude and appearance, she heard that he was obsessed with French actress Brigitte Bardot, so she dyed her hair blonde. Lennon asked her out, but when she said that she was engaged, he screamed out, "''I didn't ask you to fuckin' marry me, did I?''" She often accompanied him to Quarrymen gigs and travelled to Hamburg with McCartney's girlfriend at the time to visit him. Lennon, jealous by nature, eventually grew possessive and often terrified Powell with his anger and physical violence. Lennon later said that until he met Ono, he had never questioned his chauvinistic attitude to women. The Beatles' song "Getting Better", he said, told his own story, "I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically—any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace".

Recalling his reaction in July 1962 on learning that Cynthia was pregnant, Lennon said, "There's only one thing for it Cyn. We'll have to get married." The couple were married on 23 August at the Mount Pleasant Register Office in Liverpool. His marriage began just as Beatlemania took hold across the UK. He performed on the evening of his wedding day, and would continue to do so almost daily from then on. Epstein, fearing that fans would be alienated by the idea of a married Beatle, asked the Lennons to keep their marriage secret. Julian was born on 8 April 1963; Lennon was on tour at the time and did not see his son until three days later.

Cynthia attributes the start of the marriage breakdown to LSD, and as a result, she felt that he slowly lost interest in her. When the group travelled by train to Bangor, Wales, in 1967, for the Maharishi Yogi's Transcendental Meditation seminar, a policeman did not recognise her and stopped her from boarding. She later recalled how the incident seemed to symbolize the ending of their marriage. After arriving home at Kenwood, and finding Lennon with Ono, Cynthia left the house to stay with friends. Alexis Mardas later claimed to have slept with her that night, and a few weeks later he informed her that Lennon was seeking a divorce and custody of Julian on grounds of her adultery with him. After negotiations, Lennon capitulated and agreed to her divorcing him on the same grounds. The case was settled out of court, with Lennon giving her £100,000, and custody of Julian.

Brian Epstein

The Beatles were performing at Liverpool's Cavern Club in 1962, when all four Beatles were introduced to Epstein after a midday concert. Epstein was homosexual. According to biographer Philip Norman, one of his reasons for wanting to manage the group was that he was physically attracted to Lennon. Almost as soon as Julian was born, Lennon went on holiday to Spain with Epstein, leading to speculation about their relationship. Questioned about it later, Lennon said, "Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship. It was my first experience with a homosexual that I was conscious was homosexual. We used to sit in a café in Torremolinos looking at all the boys and I'd say, 'Do you like that one? Do you like this one?' I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time: I am experiencing this." Soon after their return from Spain, at McCartney's twenty-first birthday party in June 1963, Lennon physically attacked Cavern Club MC Bob Wooler for saying "How was your honeymoon, John?" The MC, known for his wordplay and affectionate but cutting remarks, was making a joke, but ten months had passed since Lennon's marriage, and the honeymoon, deferred, was still two months in the future. To Lennon, who was intoxicated with alcohol at the time, the matter was simple: "He called me a queer so I battered his bloody ribs in".

Lennon delighted in mocking Epstein for his homosexuality and for the fact that he was Jewish. When Epstein invited suggestions for the title of his autobiography, Lennon offered ''Queer Jew''; on learning of the eventual title, ''A Cellarful of Noise'', he parodied, "More like ''A Cellarful of Boys''". He demanded of a visitor to Epstein's flat, "Have you come to blackmail him? If not, you're the only bugger in London who hasn't." During the recording of "Baby, You're a Rich Man", he sang altered choruses of "Baby, you're a rich fag Jew".

Julian Lennon

Lennon's first son, Julian, was born as his commitments with The Beatles intensified at the height of Beatlemania during his marriage to Cynthia. Lennon was touring with The Beatles when Julian was born on 8 April 1963. Julian's birth, like his mother Cynthia's marriage to Lennon, was kept secret because Epstein was convinced public knowledge of such things would threaten The Beatles' commercial success. Julian recalls how some four years later, as a small child in Weybridge, "I was trundled home from school and came walking up with one of my watercolour paintings. It was just a bunch of stars and this blonde girl I knew at school. And Dad said, 'What's this?' I said, 'It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds.'" Lennon used it as the title of a Beatles' song, and though it was later reported to have been derived from the initials LSD, Lennon insisted, "It's not an acid song." McCartney corroborated Lennon's explanation that Julian innocently came up with the name. Lennon was distant from Julian, who felt closer to McCartney than to his father. During a car journey to visit Cynthia and Julian during Lennon's divorce, McCartney composed a song, "Hey Jules", to comfort him. It would evolve into The Beatles song "Hey Jude". Lennon later said, "That's his best song. It started off as a song about my son Julian ... he turned it into 'Hey Jude'. I always thought it was about me and Yoko but he said it wasn't."

Lennon's relationship with Julian was already strained, and after Lennon and Ono's 1971 move to New York, Julian would not see his father again until 1973. With Pang's encouragement, it was arranged for him (and his mother) to visit Lennon in Los Angeles, where they went to Disneyland. Julian started to see his father regularly, and Lennon gave him a drumming part on a ''Walls and Bridges'' track. He bought Julian a Gibson Les Paul guitar and other instruments, and encouraged his interest in music by demonstrating guitar chord techniques. Julian recalls that he and his father "got on a great deal better" during the time he spent in New York: "We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general."

In a ''Playboy'' interview with David Sheff shortly before his death, Lennon said, "Sean was a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me, and he always will." He said he was trying to re-establish a connection with the then 17-year-old, and confidently predicted, "Julian and I will have a relationship in the future." After his death it was revealed that he had left Julian very little in his will.

Yoko Ono

Two versions exist of how Lennon met Ono. According to the first, on 9 November 1966 Lennon went to the Indica Gallery in London, where Ono was preparing her conceptual art exhibit, and they were introduced by gallery owner John Dunbar. Lennon was intrigued by Ono's "Hammer A Nail": patrons hammered a nail into a wooden board, creating the art piece. Although the exhibition had not yet begun, Lennon wanted to hammer a nail into the clean board, but Ono stopped him. Dunbar asked her, "Don't you know who this is? He's a millionaire! He might buy it." Ono had supposedly not heard of The Beatles, but relented on condition that Lennon pay her five shillings, to which Lennon replied, "I'll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in." The second version, told by McCartney, is that in late 1965, Ono was in London compiling original musical scores for a book John Cage was working on, ''Notations'', but McCartney declined to give her any of his own manuscripts for the book, suggesting that Lennon might oblige. When asked, Lennon gave Ono the original handwritten lyrics to "The Word".

Ono began telephoning and calling at Lennon's home, and when his wife asked for an explanation, he explained that Ono was only trying to obtain money for her "avant-garde bullshit". In May 1968, while his wife was on holiday in Greece, Lennon invited Ono to visit. They spent the night recording what would become the ''Two Virgins'' album, after which, he said, they "made love at dawn." When Lennon's wife returned home she found Ono wearing her bathrobe and drinking tea with Lennon who simply said, "Oh, hi." Ono became pregnant in 1968 and miscarried a male child they named John Ono Lennon II on 21 November 1968, a few weeks after Lennon's divorce from Cynthia was granted.

During Lennon's last two years in The Beatles, he and Ono began public protests against the Vietnam War. They were married in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969, and spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam campaigning with a week-long Bed-In for peace. They planned another Bed-In in the United States, but were denied entry, so held one instead at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, where they recorded "Give Peace a Chance". They often combined advocacy with performance art, as in their "Bagism", first introduced during a Vienna press conference. Lennon detailed this period in The Beatles' song "The Ballad of John and Yoko". Lennon changed his name by deed poll on 22 April 1969, adding "Ono" as a middle name. The brief ceremony took place on the roof of the Apple Corps building, made famous three months earlier by The Beatles' ''Let It Be'' rooftop concert. Although he used the name John Ono Lennon thereafter, official documents referred to him as John Winston Ono Lennon, since he was not permitted to revoke a name given at birth. After Ono was injured in a car accident, Lennon arranged for a king-sized bed to be brought to the recording studio as he worked on The Beatles' last album, ''Abbey Road''. To escape the acrimony of the band's break-up, Ono suggested they move permanently to New York, which they did on 31 August 1971.

They first lived in the St. Regis Hotel on 5th Avenue, East 55th Street, then moved to a street-level flat at 105 Bank Street, Greenwich Village, on 16 October 1971. After a robbery, they relocated to the more secure Dakota at 1 West 72nd Street, in May 1973.

May Pang

ABKCO Industries, formed in 1968 by Allen Klein as an umbrella company to ABKCO Records, recruited May Pang as a receptionist in 1969. Through involvement in a project with ABKCO, Lennon and Ono met her the following year. She became their personal assistant. After she had been working with the couple for three years, Ono confided that she and Lennon were becoming estranged from one another. She went on to suggest that Pang should begin a physical relationship with Lennon, telling her, "He likes you a lot." Pang, 22, astounded by Ono's proposition, eventually agreed to become Lennon's companion. The pair soon moved to California, beginning an 18-month period he later called his "lost weekend". In Los Angeles, Pang encouraged Lennon to develop regular contact with Julian, whom he had not seen for two years. He also rekindled friendships with Starr, McCartney, Beatles' roadie Mal Evans, and Harry Nilsson. Whilst drinking with Nilsson, after misunderstanding something Pang said, Lennon attempted to strangle her, relenting only when physically restrained by Nilsson.

On moving to New York, they prepared a spare room in their newly rented apartment for Julian to visit. Lennon, hitherto inhibited by Ono in this regard, began to reestablish contact with other relatives and friends. By December he and Pang were considering a house purchase, and he was refusing to accept Ono's telephone calls. In January 1975, he agreed to meet Ono—who said she had found a cure for smoking—but after the meeting failed to return home or call Pang. When Pang telephoned the next day, Ono told her Lennon was unavailable, being exhausted after a hypnotherapy session. Two days later, Lennon reappeared at a joint dental appointment, stupefied and confused to such an extent that Pang believed he had been brainwashed. He told her his separation from Ono was now over, though Ono would allow him to continue seeing her as his mistress.

Sean Lennon

When Lennon and Ono were reunited, she became pregnant, but having previously suffered three miscarriages in her attempt to have a child with Lennon, she said she wanted an abortion. She agreed to allow the pregnancy to continue on condition that Lennon adopt the role of househusband; this he agreed to do. Sean was born on 9 October 1975, Lennon's 35th birthday, delivered by Caesarean section. Lennon's subsequent career break would span five years. He had a photographer take pictures of Sean every day of his first year, and created numerous drawings for him, posthumously published as ''Real Love: The Drawings for Sean''. Lennon later proudly declared, "He didn't come out of my belly but, by God, I made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and to how he sleeps, and to the fact that he swims like a fish."

Former Beatles

Although his friendship with Starr remained consistently warm during the years following The Beatles' break-up in 1970, Lennon's relationship with McCartney and Harrison varied. He was close to Harrison initially, but the two drifted apart after Lennon moved to America. When Harrison was in New York for his December 1974 ''Dark Horse'' tour, Lennon agreed to join him on stage, but failed to appear after an argument over Lennon's refusal to sign an agreement that would finally dissolve The Beatles' legal partnership. (Lennon eventually signed the papers while holidaying in Florida with Pang and Julian.) Harrison incensed Lennon in 1980 when he published an autobiography that made little mention of him. Lennon told ''Playboy'', "I was hurt by it. By glaring omission ... my influence on his life is absolutely zilch ... he remembers every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met in subsequent years. I'm not in the book."

Lennon's most intense feelings were reserved for McCartney. In addition to attacking him through the lyrics of "How Do You Sleep?", Lennon argued with him through the press for three years after the group split. The two later began to reestablish something of the close friendship they had once known, and in 1974 even played music together again, before growing apart once more. Lennon said that during McCartney's final visit, in April 1976, they watched the episode of ''Saturday Night Live'' in which Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer to get The Beatles to reunite on the show. The pair considered going to the studio to make a joke appearance, attempting to claim their share of the money, but were too tired. Lennon summarised his feelings towards McCartney in an interview three days before his death: "Throughout my career, I've selected to work with...only two people: Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono....That ain't bad picking."

Along with his estrangement from McCartney, Lennon always felt a musical competitiveness with him and kept an ear on his music. During his five-year career break he was content to sit back so long as McCartney was producing what Lennon saw as mediocre "product". When McCartney released "Coming Up" in 1980, the year Lennon returned to the studio and the last year of his life, he took notice. "It's driving me crackers!" he jokingly complained, because he could not get the tune out of his head. Asked the same year whether the group were dreaded enemies or the best of friends, he replied that they were neither, and that he had not seen any of them in a long time. But he also said, "I still love those guys. The Beatles are over, but John, Paul, George and Ringo go on."

Political activism

Lennon and Ono used their honeymoon as what they termed a "Bed-In for Peace" at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel; the March 1969 event attracted worldwide media ridicule. At a second Bed-In three months later at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal Lennon wrote and recorded "Give Peace a Chance". Released as a single, it was quickly taken up as an anti-war anthem and sung by a quarter of a million demonstrators against the Vietnam War in Washington, DC, on 15 October, the second Vietnam Moratorium Day.

Later that year, Lennon and Ono supported efforts by the family of James Hanratty, hanged for murder in 1962, to prove his innocence. Those who had condemned Hanratty were, according to Lennon, "the same people who are running guns to South Africa and killing blacks in the streets. ... The same bastards are in control, the same people are running everything, it's the whole bullshit bourgeois scene." In London, Lennon and Ono staged a "Britain Murdered Hanratty" banner march and a "Silent Protest For James Hanratty", and produced a 40-minute documentary on the case. At an appeal hearing years later, Hanratty's conviction was upheld.

Lennon and Ono showed their solidarity with the Clydeside UCS workers' work-in of 1971 by sending a bouquet of red roses and a cheque for £5,000. On moving to New York City in August that year, they befriended two of the Chicago Seven, Yippie peace activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. Another peace activist, John Sinclair, poet and co-founder of the White Panther Party, was serving ten years in prison for selling two joints of marijuana after previous convictions for possession of the drug. In December 1971 at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 20,000 people attended the "John Sinclair Freedom Rally", a protest and benefit concert with contributions from Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party, and others. Lennon and Ono, backed by David Peel and Rubin, performed an acoustic set of four songs from their forthcoming ''Some Time in New York City'' album including "John Sinclair", whose lyrics called for his release. The day before the rally, Michigan State had drastically reduced the penalties for Sinclair’s crimes and three days after the rally, he was released on bail. The performance was recorded and two of the tracks later appeared on ''John Lennon Anthology'' (1998).

Following the ''Bloody Sunday'' incident in Northern Ireland in 1972, in which 13 unarmed civil rights protesters were shot dead by the British Army, Lennon said that given the choice between the army and the IRA (who were not involved in the incident) he would side with the latter. Lennon and Ono wrote two songs protesting British presence and actions in Ireland for their ''Some Time in New York City'' album: "Luck of the Irish" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday". In 2000, David Shayler, a former member of Britain's domestic security service MI5 suggested that Lennon had given money to the IRA though this was swiftly denied by Ono. Biographer Bill Harry records that following Bloody Sunday, Lennon and Ono financially supported the production of the film ''The Irish Tapes'', a political documentary with a Republican slant.

According to FBI surveillance reports (and confirmed by Tariq Ali in 2006) Lennon was sympathetic to the International Marxist Group, a Trotskyist group formed in Britain in 1968. However, the FBI considered Lennon to have limited effectiveness as a revolutionary since he was "constantly under the influence of narcotics".

Deportation attempt

Following the impact of "Give Peace a Chance" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", both strongly associated with the anti–Vietnam War movement, the Nixon administration, hearing rumours of Lennon's involvement in a concert to be held in San Diego at the same time as the Republican National Convention, tried to have him deported. Nixon believed that Lennon's anti-war activities could cost him his re-election; Republican Senator Strom Thurmond suggested in a February 1972 memo that "deportation would be a strategic counter-measure" against Lennon. The next month the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began deportation proceedings, arguing that his 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London had made him ineligible for admission to the United States. Lennon spent the next three and a half years in and out of deportation hearings until on 8 October 1975, when a court of appeals barred the deportation attempt, stating " ... the courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds." While the legal battle continued, Lennon attended rallies and made television appearances. Lennon and Ono co-hosted the ''Mike Douglas Show'' for a week in February 1972, introducing guests such as Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale to mid-America. In 1972, Bob Dylan wrote a letter to the INS defending Lennon, stating:

John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to the country’s so-called art institution. They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass media. Hurray for John and Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay!

On 23 March 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the US within 60 days. Ono, meanwhile, was granted permanent residence. In response, Lennon and Ono held a press conference on 1 April 1973 at the New York City Bar Association, where they announced the formation of the state of Nutopia; a place with "no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people". Waving the white flag of Nutopia (two handkerchiefs), they asked for political asylum in the US. The press conference was filmed, and would later appear in the 2006 documentary ''The U.S. vs. John Lennon''. Lennon's ''Mind Games'' (1973) included the track "Nutopian International Anthem", which comprised three seconds of silence. Soon after the press conference, Nixon's involvement in a political scandal came to light, and in June the Watergate hearings began in Washington, DC. They led to the president's resignation 14 months later. Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, showed little interest in continuing the battle against Lennon, and the deportation order was overturned in 1975. The following year, his US immigration status finally resolved, Lennon received his "green card" certifying his permanent residency, and when Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as president in January 1977, Lennon and Ono attended the Inaugural Ball.

FBI surveillance and declassified documents

After Lennon's death, historian Jon Wiener filed a Freedom of Information Act request for FBI files documenting the Bureau's role in the deportation attempt. The FBI admitted it had 281 pages of files on Lennon, but refused to release most of them on the grounds that they contained national security information. In 1983, Wiener sued the FBI with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. It took 14 years of litigation to force the FBI to release the withheld pages. The ACLU, representing Wiener, won a favourable decision in their suit against the FBI in the Ninth Circuit in 1991. The Justice Department appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in April 1992, but the court declined to review the case. In 1997, respecting President Bill Clinton's newly instigated rule that documents should be withheld only if releasing them would involve "foreseeable harm", the Justice Department settled most of the outstanding issues outside court by releasing all but 10 of the contested documents. Wiener published the results of his 14-year campaign in January 2000. ''Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files'' contained facsimiles of the documents, including "lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges". The story is told in the documentary ''The U.S. vs. John Lennon''. The final 10 documents in Lennon's FBI file, which reported on his ties with London anti-war activists in 1971 and had been withheld as containing "national security information provided by a foreign government under an explicit promise of confidentiality", were released in December 2006. They contained no indication that the British government had regarded Lennon as a serious threat; one example of the released material was a report that two prominent British leftists had hoped Lennon would finance a left-wing bookshop and reading room.

Writing and art

Lennon's biographer Bill Harry writes that Lennon began drawing and writing creatively at an early age with the encouragement of his uncle. He collected his stories, poetry, cartoons, and caricatures in a Quarry Bank High School exercise book that he called the ''Daily Howl''. The drawings were often of crippled people, and the writings satirical, and throughout the book was an abundance of wordplay. According to classmate Bill Turner, Lennon created the ''Daily Howl'' to amuse his best friend and later Quarrymen band mate, Pete Shotton, to whom he would show his work before he let anyone else see it. Turner said that Lennon "had an obsession for Wigan Pier. It kept cropping up", and in Lennon's story ''A Carrot In A Potato Mine'', "the mine was at the end of Wigan Pier." Turner described how one of Lennon's cartoons depicted a bus stop sign annotated with the question, "Why?". Above was a flying pancake, and below, "a blind man wearing glasses leading along a blind dog—also wearing glasses".

Lennon's love of wordplay and nonsense with a twist found a wider audience when he was 24. Harry writes that ''In His Own Write'' (1964) was published after "Some journalist who was hanging around The Beatles came to me and I ended up showing him the stuff. They said, 'Write a book' and that's how the first one came about". Like the ''Daily Howl'' it contained a mix of formats including short stories, poetry, plays and drawings. One story, "Good Dog Nigel", tells the tale of "a happy dog, urinating on a lamp post, barking, wagging his tail—until he suddenly hears a message that he will be killed at three o'clock". ''The Times Literary Supplement'' considered the poems and stories "remarkable ... also very funny ... the nonsense runs on, words and images prompting one another in a chain of pure fantasy". ''Book Week'' reported, "This is nonsense writing, but one has only to review the literature of nonsense to see how well Lennon has brought it off. While some of his homonyms are gratuitous word play, many others have not only double meaning but a double edge." Lennon was not only surprised by the positive reception, but that the book was reviewed at all, and suggested that readers "took the book more seriously than I did myself. It just began as a laugh for me".

In combination with ''A Spaniard in the Works'' (1965), ''In His Own Write'' formed the basis of the stage play ''The John Lennon Play: In His Own Write'', co-adapted by Victor Spinetti and Adrienne Kennedy. After negotiations between Lennon, Spinetti and the artistic director of the National Theatre, Sir Laurence Olivier, the play opened at the Old Vic in 1968. Lennon and Ono attended the opening night performance, their second public appearance together to date. After Lennon's death, further works were published, including ''Skywriting by Word of Mouth'' (1986); ''Ai: Japan Through John Lennon's Eyes: A Personal Sketchbook'' (1992), with Lennon's illustrations of the definitions of Japanese words; and ''Real Love: The Drawings for Sean'' (1999). ''The Beatles Anthology'' (2000) also presented examples of his writings and drawings.

Musicianship

Instruments played

His playing of a mouth organ during a bus journey to visit his cousin in Scotland caught the driver's ear. Impressed, the driver told Lennon of a harmonica he could have if he came to Edinburgh the following day, where one had been stored in the bus depot since a passenger left it on a bus. The professional instrument quickly replaced Lennon's toy. He would continue to play harmonica, often using the instrument during The Beatles' Hamburg years, and it became a signature sound in the group's early recordings. His mother taught him how to play the banjo, later buying him an acoustic guitar. At 16, he played rhythm guitar with the Quarrymen. As his career progressed, he played a variety of electric guitars, predominantly the Rickenbacker 325, Epiphone Casino and Gibson J-160E, and, from the start of his solo career, the Gibson Les Paul Junior. Occasionally he played a six-string bass guitar, the Fender Bass VI, providing bass on some Beatles' numbers that occupied McCartney with another instrument. His other instrument of choice was the piano, on which he composed many songs, including "Imagine", described as his best-known solo work. His jamming on a piano with McCartney in 1963 led to the creation of The Beatles' first US number one, "I Want to Hold Your Hand". In 1964, he became one of the first British musicians to acquire a Mellotron keyboard, though it was not heard on a Beatles' recording until "Strawberry Fields Forever" in late 1966.

Vocal style

When Lennon recorded "Twist and Shout", the final track during the mammoth one-day session that captured the band's 1963 debut album ''Please Please Me'', his voice, already compromised by a cold, came close to giving out. Lennon said, "I couldn't sing the damn thing, I was just screaming." In the words of biographer Barry Miles, "Lennon simply shredded his vocal cords in the interests of rock 'n' roll." The Beatles' producer, George Martin, tells how Lennon "had an inborn dislike of his own voice which I could never understand. He was always saying to me: 'DO something with my voice! ... put something on it ... Make it ''different''.'" Martin obliged, often using double-tracking and other techniques. Music critic Robert Christgau says that Lennon's "greatest vocal performance ... from scream to whine, is modulated electronically ... echoed, filtered, and double tracked."

As his Beatles' era segued into his solo career, his singing voice found a widening range of expression. Biographer Chris Gregory writes that Lennon was, "tentatively beginning to expose his insecurities in a number of acoustic-led 'confessional' ballads, so beginning the process of 'public therapy' that will eventually culminate in the primal screams of 'Cold Turkey' and the cathartic ''John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band''." David Stuart Ryan notes Lennon's vocal delivery to range from, "extreme vulnerability, sensitivity and even naivety" to a hard "rasping" style. Wiener too describes contrasts, saying the singer's voice can be "at first subdued; soon it almost cracks with despair" Music historian Ben Urish recalls hearing The Beatles' ''Ed Sullivan Show'' performance of "This Boy" played on the radio a few days after Lennon's murder: "As Lennon's vocals reached their peak ... it hurt too much to hear him scream with such anguish and emotion. But it was my emotions I heard in his voice. Just like I always had."

Legacy

Music historians Schinder and Schwartz, writing of the transformation in popular music styles that took place between the 1950s and the 1960s, say that The Beatles' influence cannot be overstated: having "revolutionized the sound, style, and attitude of popular music and opened rock and roll's doors to a tidal wave of British rock acts", the group then "spent the rest of the 1960s expanding rock's stylistic frontiers". Liam Gallagher, his group Oasis among the many who acknowledge the band's influence, identifies Lennon as a hero; in 1999 he named his first child Lennon Gallagher in tribute. On National Poetry Day in 1999, after conducting a poll to identify the UK's favourite song lyric, the BBC announced "Imagine" the winner.

In a 2006 ''Guardian'' article, Jon Wiener wrote: "For young people in 1972, it was thrilling to see Lennon's courage in standing up to [US President] Nixon. That willingness to take risks with his career, and his life, is one reason why people still admire him today." Whilst for music historians Urish and Bielen, Lennon's most significant effort was "the self-portraits ... in his songs [which] spoke to, for, and about, the human condition."

Lennon continues to be mourned throughout the world and has been the subject of numerous memorials and tributes. In 2010, on what would have been Lennon’s 70th birthday, the John Lennon Peace Monument was unveiled in Chavasse Park, Liverpool, by Cynthia and Julian Lennon. The sculpture entitled ‘Peace & Harmony’ exhibits peace symbols and carries the inscription “Peace on Earth for the Conservation of Life · In Honour of John Lennon 1940–1980”.

Awards and sales

The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership is regarded as one of the most influential and successful of the 20th century. As performer, writer or co-writer Lennon has had 25 number one singles on the US Hot 100 chart. His album sales in the US stand at 14 million units. ''Double Fantasy'', released shortly before his death, and his best-selling, post-Beatles' studio album at three million shipments in the US, won the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The following year, the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music went to Lennon. Participants in a 2002 BBC poll voted him eighth of "100 Greatest Britons". Between 2003 and 2008, ''Rolling Stone'' recognised Lennon in several reviews of artists and music, ranking him fifth of "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" and 38th of "The Immortals: The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time", and his albums ''John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'' and ''Imagine'', 22nd and 76th respectively of "The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) with the other Beatles in 1965. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Discography

''Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins'' (with Yoko Ono) (1968)

''Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions'' (with Yoko Ono) (1969)

''Wedding Album'' (with Yoko Ono) (1969)

''John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band'' (1970)

''Imagine'' (1971)

''Some Time in New York City'' (with Yoko Ono) (1972)

''Mind Games'' (1973)

''Walls and Bridges'' (1974)

''Rock 'n' Roll'' (1975)

''Double Fantasy'' (with Yoko Ono) (1980)

''Milk and Honey'' (with Yoko Ono) (1984)

''Menlove Ave.'' (1986)

Notes

Lennon was responsible for 25 Billboard Hot 100 number one singles as performer, writer or co-writer. Solo (2): "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", "(Just Like) Starting Over". With The Beatles (20): "Can't Buy Me Love", "I Feel Fine", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Love Me Do", "She Loves You", "A Hard Day's Night", "Eight Days a Week", "Help!", "Ticket to Ride", "Yesterday", "Paperback Writer", "We Can Work It Out", "All You Need Is Love", "Hello Goodbye", "Penny Lane", "Hey Jude", "Something/"Come Together", "Get Back", "Let It Be", "The Long and Winding Road"/"For You Blue". As co-writer of and performer on release by another artist (1): "Fame" (David Bowie). As co-writer of releases by other artists (2): "A World Without Love" (Peter and Gordon), "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (Elton John).

Citations

References

Further reading

Kane, Larry (2007). ''Lennon Revealed''. Running Press. ISBN 9780762429660

Pang, May; Edwards, Henry (1983). ''Loving John: The Untold Story''. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-37916-6.

Wiener, Jon. The John Lennon FBI Files

Yorke, Richard (1969). "John Lennon: Ringo’s Right, We Can’t Tour Again", ''New Musical Express'', 7 June 1969, reproduced by ''Crawdaddy!'', 2007.

External links

The Liverpool Lennons

''BBC'' Archive on John Lennon

''NPR'' Archive on John Lennon

John Lennon and Yoko Ono – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

John Lennon hosted by EMI Group Limited

Unveiling of ‘Peace & Harmony’, European Peace Monument – Dedicated to John Lennon

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The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese (in part to avoid confusion with two prior Tiananmen Square protests), were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China (PRC) beginning on 15 April 1989. The protests are also known as the Tiananmen Massacre, but journalistic use of the term has waned in recent years. This is because, according to James Miles, the BBC reporter who originally covered the protests, the violence did not actually happen in Tiananmen, but outside the square in the city of Beijing. The term also gives a misleading impression that demonstrations only happened in Beijing, when in fact they occurred in many large cities throughout Mainland China.

The protests were sparked by mass mourning over the death of former CPC General Secretary Hu Yaobang, a Party official who had been purged for his support of political liberalization. By the eve of Hu's funeral, 100,000 people gathered at Tiananmen Square. Beijing students began the demonstrations to encourage continued economic reform and liberalization, and evolved into a mass movement for political reform. From Tiananmen Square they later expanded to the surrounding streets. Non-violent protests also occurred in cities throughout China, including Shanghai and Wuhan. Looting and rioting occurred in various locations throughout China, including Xi'an and Changsha.

The movement used mainly non-violent methods and can be considered a case of civil resistance. Led mainly by students and intellectuals, the protests occurred in the year that was to see the collapse of a number of communist governments in eastern Europe.

The movement lasted seven weeks after Hu's death on 15 April. Premier Li Peng, a hardline conservative, declared martial law on 20 May, but no military action took place until 4 June, when the tanks and troops of the People's Liberation Army moved into the streets of Beijing, using live fire while proceeding to Tiananmen Square to clear the area of protestors. The exact number of civilian deaths is not known, and the majority of estimates range from several hundred to thousands. There was widespread international condemnation of the government's use of force against the protesters.

There was little bloodshed in Tiananmen Square itself however, the killings mostly took place three miles west of the Square. Following 4 June, the government conducted widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around China, banned the foreign press from the country and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press. The Communist Party initiated a large-scale campaign to purge officials deemed sympathetic to the protests. Several senior officials, most notably Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, were placed under house arrest.

Naming of incident

In the Chinese language, the incident is most commonly known as the "" (, commonly translated to the "June Fourth Incident"). Sometimes people call it "" (, commonly "June Fourth Movement"). Colloquially, a simply "" (, commonly "June Fourth") is used. The nomenclature of the former is consistent with the customary names of the other two great protest actions that occurred in Tiananmen Square: the May Fourth Movement of 1919, and the April Fifth Movement of 1976. '4 June' refers to the day on which the People's Liberation Army cleared Tiananmen Square of protesters, although the order to proceed into Tiananmen as well as its actual operation began on the evening of 3 June. Other names which have been used in the Chinese language include "" (, June Fourth Massacre) and "" (, June Fourth Crackdown). The government of the People's Republic of China has referred to the event as the "" (Political Turmoil between Spring and Summer of 1989).

Other names, such as the "" (, 89 Pro-democracy Movement) are also used to describe the event broadly in its entirety. Alternative names such as May 35th, VIIV(Roman number for 6 and 4) and "" (Eight Squared) are used on the internet in Mainland China to bypass internet censorship.

In English, the terms Tiananmen Square Protests or Tiananmen Square Crackdown are often used to describe 4 June events. Tiananmen Square Massacre is also commonly used by the media, but journalistic use has waned in recent years. This is because, according to James Miles, the BBC reporter who originally covered the protests, the violence did not actually happen in Tiananmen, but outside the square in the city of Beijing. The term also gives a misleading impression that demonstrations only happened in Beijing, when in fact they occurred in many large cities throughout Mainland China.

Background

At the Third Plenum of the Eleventh National Congress of the Communist Party in 1978, the Communist Party of China (CPC) initiated a series of economic and political reforms, which led to the gradual implementation of a market economy and some political liberalization that relaxed the system set up by Mao Zedong. The Chinese economic reforms were led by Zhao Ziyang, the Party's General Secretary, and they were generally successful in the early years, particularly in the rural regions. However, since political reforms were neglected, corruption and nepotism pervaded the shift toward a free-market economy. The dual-track system, which was “the most characteristic feature of China's initial departure from the planned economy” created the “coexistence of two coordination mechanisms (state and market).”

The state-mandated pricing system, in place since the 1950s, had long kept prices stable at low levels that had, it is argued, reduced incentives to increase production. The partial reforms created a two-tier system where some prices were forced to be at low levels while others were allowed to fluctuate. In a market with chronic shortages, this allowed people with powerful connections to buy goods at low prices and sell at market prices. Also, money supply had expanded too fast. At least a third of factories were unprofitable, depending on loans and subsidies. The government tightened money supply in 1988, leaving much of the economy without loans.

Following the 1988 Beidaihe meeting, word leaked that Zhao Ziyang would listen to those members of the CPC, including Deng Xiaoping, who were urging ''chuangjiageguan'' (to get the price right in one shot) by deciding to “establish a market-regulated price system in China within five years.” Economists recommended faster reforms, for example, renowned economist Milton Friedman gave a speech and met officials in China, recommending them to free the rest of the economy, asserting that a market economy would benefit people and it should be made free from corruption, bribes, special influence, and political mechanisms. Leaked news that there would be a relaxing of controls triggered waves of panic cash withdrawals, buying and hoarding all over China. Some even bought rooms full of matches. The decision to rescind the price reforms occurred in less than two weeks, “but its impact continued to reverberate for a long time...[and] [a]s a consequence, inflation soared.” In the late 1980s, inflation was the most pronounced issue facing the Chinese economy, which was at 7.3% in 1987, but jumped to 18.5% in 1988. Compounding this was the loss of job security (the iron rice bowl), which led to a “crisis of layoffs and unemployment.”

Intellectuals and students were especially disaffected by the reform process, as they were originally envisioned to play a leading role in the “springtime of the sciences.” Due to the initial stress on educated people to guide development, the number of universities expanded (400 universities in 1977 to 1,975 in 1988), as did student enrollment (625,319 in 1977 to 2,065,923 in 1988). However, the Four Modernizations were “gradually dropped”, as central planning gave way to a market-economy development strategy being adopted. The reform process would now emphasize the role of the market, agriculture, light industry, the service sector, private initiatives, and foreign investment. This shift in orientation was not received well by the burgeoning student population, who found it difficult to find job placements as “the recently prospering industrial sectors, that, is rural collective industries and private businesses, did not really need and could not attract university graduates.” Undergraduate students in the social sciences and the humanities, 18.3% of all Beijing undergraduates in 1988, were especially hard hit because their training did not give them an advantage in the new market economy. This problem, growing since the mid-1980s, was exacerbated by a reform to the job assignment system in 1988, creating the two-way selection system. This allowed private companies to veto the job placements, instead of accepting students the universities matched them with. The two-way system is referred to by Dingxin Zhao as the “backdoor selection” system, because it was pervaded by nepotism and favoritism, as “employers only took students who had acquaintances in their unit regardless of the students' academic performance.” Popular slogans espoused by intellectuals and students during the mid-1980 included, “those who hold scalpels earn less than those who hold eel knives” and, “those who produce missiles earn less than those who sell tea eggs.” Facing a dismal job market, due to the economic reforms, and limited chances of going abroad after the mid-1980s, Chinese intellectuals and students had a greater vested interest in Chinese domestic and political issues. Small-scale study groups began appearing on Beijing university campuses, the most famous being Wang Dan's Democracy Salon and Liu Gang's Caodi Salon (the salon on the lawn). These were attended by students, members of the intellectual elite; even the American ambassador and his wife participated in one meeting. Discussions covered a wide range of issues about politics, which “trained many student activists” who were the “major organizational base for the coming student movement.” The “worsening economic situation of intellectuals and students, and of the country as a whole” led to “student protests repeatedly breaking out in universities after 1986” (see 1986–1987 Student Protests, and April–June 1988 protests).

Wang Hui, a professor in Beijing, says that, “these changes (the economic reforms) were the catalyst for the 1989 social mobilization.” Wu Xiuquan, member of the Standing Committee of the Central Advisory Commission, echoed this sentiment at the Secretariat of the Fourth Plenum of the Thirteenth CCP Central Committee on 19 June 1989, two weeks after the repression of the protest, when he said, "China has its own unique national situation and patterns of development; copying others mechanically will lead us straight to disaster. What's more, economics and politics go by different rules. Why did Zhao's shock-therapy price reforms fail last year? Because they were too much; the people panicked."

Barry Naughton states that “economic causes were an important part of the social crisis leading up to the Tiananmen debacle” The social crisis leading up to the Tiananmen Square protests were created by deteriorating cyclical economic conditions. Naughton is in agreement with the “reform without losers” view of China's economic reforms, and only because anti-reform elements in the Party failed to roll back the reforms and market forces were allowed to correct the economy, did urban inflation decrease. More specific demands opposed official corruption and speculation, opposition to the 'princely' party (elites with special privileges), and called for price stability, social security, and the democratic means to supervise the reform process, and the reorganization of social benefits.

In the summer of 1986 astrophysics professor Fang Lizhi, who had returned from Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, United States, began a personal tour around universities in China, giving speeches about subjects such as liberty, human rights, and separation of powers. He became immensely popular and his recorded speeches were passed from dormitory to dormitory, from campus to campus. Deng Xiaoping took notice and warned that Fang Lizhi was "admiring the Western multi-party system and attempting to undermine the Communist Party leadership; admiring the capitalist economy and attempting to undermine the socialist system; admiring the decadent western lifestyle and attempting to undermine the spiritual health of the Chinese people". In December 1986, student demonstrators, taking advantage of the loosening political atmosphere, staged protests against the slow pace of reform. Inspired by Fang Lizhi, who gave speeches criticizing Deng's "go slow policies", students took to protest. The students were also disenchanted with the amount of control the government exerted, citing compulsory calisthenics and not being allowed to dance at rock concerts. Students called for campus elections, the chance to study abroad, and greater availability of western pop culture.

Hu Yaobang, a protégé of Deng and a leading advocate of reform, was blamed for the protests and his resignation from the position of Secretary General of the CPC was announced on 16 January 1987. Included in his resignation was also a "humiliating self-criticism", which the Central Committee of the Communist Party forced him to issue. The Party-led "Anti Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign", further denounced Hu. His forthright calls for "rapid reform" and his almost open contempt of "Maoist excesses" had made him a suitable scapegoat in the eyes of Deng and others, after the pro-democracy student protests of 1986–1987. Because he was publicly sympathetic to reform, Hu Yaobang became a popular figure among the Chinese students.

The death of Hu Yaobang provided the initial impetus for the Tiananmen Square protests Hu's sudden death, due to heart attack, on 15 April 1989, provided a perfect opportunity for the students to gather once again, not only to mourn the deceased Secretary General, but also to have their voices heard in "demanding a reversal of the verdict against him". The students hoped to bring renewed attention to the important issues of the 1986–1987 pro-democracy protests, and possibly also to those of the Democracy Wall protests in 1978–1979.

Protest development

+ Student Leaders	scope="col" width="75"	Name	Origin and Affiliation
Chai Ling	Shandong; Beijing Normal University
Wu'erkaixi	Xinjiang; Beijing Normal University
Wang Dan	Beijing; Peking University
Feng Congde	Sichuan; Peking University
Shen Tong	Beijing; Peking University
Wang Youcai	Zhejiang; Peking University
Li Lu	Hebei; Nanjing University
Zhou Yongjun	China University of Political Science and Law

Small voluntary civilian gatherings started on 15 April around Monument to the People's Heroes in the middle of the Tiananmen Square in the form of mourning for Hu Yaobang. On the same day, many students at Peking University and Tsinghua University expressed their sorrow and mourning for Hu Yaobang by posting eulogies inside the campus and erecting shrines, and joined the civilian mourning in Tiananmen Square in a piecemeal fashion. Organized student gatherings started outside of Beijing on a small scale in Xi'an and Shanghai on 16 April.

Several people at the China University of Political Science and Law had made a large wreath to commemorate Hu Yaobang. Its laying-party was on 17 April and the people did not know how many people would join them. They started walking to Tiananmen Square at one o'clock and were surprised by the number of people who joined them. At five o'clock, 500 students from the university reached the eastern gate of the Great Hall of the People, part of Tiananmen Square, and commenced mourning activities for Hu Yaobang. The gathering in front of the Great Hall was soon deemed obstructive to the normal operation of the building, so police intervened and attempted to disperse the students by persuasion. The gathering featured speakers from various backgrounds giving public orations commemorating Hu Yaobang while expressing their concerns of social problems.

Starting on the night of 17 April, three thousand students from Peking University marched from the campus towards Tiananmen Square, and soon nearly a thousand students from Tsinghua University joined the ranks. Upon arrival, they soon joined forces with students and civilians who were in the Square earlier. As its size grew, the gathering gradually evolved into a protest, as students began to draft a list of pleas and suggestions ("List of Seven Demands") for the government:

(1) affirm as correct Hu Yaobang's views on democracy and freedom;(2) admit that the campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalization had been wrong;(3) publish information on the income of state leaders and their family members;(4) end the ban on privately run newspapers and permit freedom of speech; (5) increase funding for education and raise intellectuals' pay; (6) end restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing; and(7) hold democratic elections to replace government officials who made bad policy decisions.

In addition, they demanded that the government-controlled media print and broadcast their demands and that the government respond to them publicly.

On the morning of 18 April, the students remained in the square. Some gathered around the Monument to the People's Heroes singing patriotic songs and listening to impromptu speeches by student organizers. Another group of students sat in front of the Great Hall of the People, the office of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress; they demanded to see members of the Standing Committee and show them the List of Seven Demands. Meanwhile, a few thousand students gathered in front of the Zhongnanhai building complex, the residence of the government, demanding to see government leaders and get answers to their earlier demands. Students tried to muscle their way through the gate by pushing, but security and police, locking arms, formed a cordon that eventually deterred students' attempts to enter through the gate. Students then staged a sit-in. Some government officials did unofficially meet with student representatives, but without an official response, frustrations continued to mount.

On 20 April, police finally dispersed the students in front of Zhongnanhai by force, employing batons, and minor clashes were reported. The protests in Tiananmen Square gained momentum after news of the confrontation between students and police spread; the belief by students that the Chinese media was distorting the nature of their activities also led to increased public support. Also on this date, a group of workers calling themselves the “Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation” issued two handbills in response to the police action at Zhongnanhai.

On the night of 21 April, the day before Hu's funeral, some 100,000 students marched on Tiananmen Square, gathering there before the square could be closed off for the funeral. From 21 to 23 April, students from Beijing called for a strike at universities, which included teachers and students boycotting classes. The government became alarmed and was now well aware of the political storm caused by the now-legitimized 1976 Tiananmen Incident.

On 22 April, near dusk, serious rioting broke out in Changsha and Xi'an. In Xi'an, arson from rioters destroyed cars and houses, and looting occurred in shops near the city's Xihua Gate. In Changsha, 38 stores were ransacked by looters. Over 350 people were arrested in both cities. In Wuhan, university students organized protests against the provincial government. Under the direction of General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, the Politburo Standing Committee met several times to discuss on-going events. Zhao stressed three points: discourage students from further protests and ask them to go back to class, use all measures necessary to combat rioting, and open forms of dialogue with students at different levels of government. Premier Li Peng called upon Zhao to condemn protestors and recognize the need to take more serious action. Zhao was dismissive of Li. Despite calls for him to remain in Beijing, Zhao left for a state visit to North Korea on 23 April.

Turning Point: 26 April Editorial

Zhao's departure to North Korea left Li Peng as the acting authority of the party in Beijing. On 24 April, Li Peng and the PSC met with Beijing Party Secretary Li Ximing and mayor Chen Xitong. Beijing municipal officials wanted a quick resolution to the crisis, and presented the protests as a conspiracy to overthrow China's political system and major party leaders, including Deng Xiaoping. In the absence of Zhao, the PSC agreed that some kind of firm action against protesters was due. On the evening of 25 April, Li Peng and Yang Shangkun met with Deng Xiaoping in Deng's residence. Deng endorsed a hardline stance against the protests. This meeting firmly established the first cohesive official government policy on the protests, and highlighted Deng's position of authority on large matters. Li Peng subsequently ordered Deng's internal speech to be drafted as a communique and issued to all mid to high-level officials in the Communist Party in an effort to mobilize the party apparatus against protesters.

On 26 April, echoing the party communique, the party's official newspaper, the ''People's Daily'', issued a front-page editorial titled "It is necessary to take a clear-cut stand against disturbances," attempting to rally the public behind the government, and accused "extremely small segments of opportunists" of plotting to overthrow the Communist Party and China's "socialist system of government". The statement enraged student protesters, who interpreted its contents as a direct indictment on the protests. The editorial proved to be a major sticking point for the remainder of the protests. On 27 April about 50,000 students assembled on the streets of Beijing, disregarding the warning of military action made by authorities, and demanded that the government retract the statement. At the same time, student leaders also toned down anti-Communist slogans, choosing to present a message of "anti-corruption, anti-cronyism" but "pro-party".

In Beijing, a majority of students from the city's numerous colleges and universities participated with support of their instructors and other intellectuals. Posters and leaflets were posted at the Triangle at Beijing University and at the Monument to the People's Heroes and informed the students of what was happening throughout the course of the movement. The students rejected official Communist Party-controlled student associations and set up autonomous associations in their stead. The students viewed themselves as patriots and heirs of the 1919 May Fourth Movement for "science and democracy". The protests also evoked memories of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1976, which had eventually led to the ousting of the Gang of Four. From their origins as a memorial to Hu Yaobang, who was seen by the students as an advocate of democracy, the students' activities gradually developed over the course of their demonstration from protests against corruption into demands for freedom of the press and an end to, or the reform of, the rule of the PRC by the Communist Party of China and Deng Xiaoping.

While the protests lacked a unified cause or leadership, participants were generally against authoritarianism and voiced calls for democratic reform within the structure of the government. Unlike the Tiananmen protests of 1987, which consisted mainly of students and intellectuals, the protests in 1989 commanded widespread support from the urban workers who were alarmed by the new economic reforms, growing inflation, and corruption. In Beijing, they were supported by a large number of people. Similar numbers were found in major cities throughout China, including Urumqi, Shanghai, and Chongqing; and later in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese communities in North America and Europe.

Protests escalate

+ Party and Government Leaders	scope="col" width="100"	Name	Position(s)
Deng Xiaoping	Paramount Leader, Chairman of the Central Military Commission
Chen Yun	Chairman of the CPC Central Advisory Commission
Zhao Ziyang	General Secretary of the Communist Party of China First Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission (People's Republic of China)>Central Military Commission
Li Peng	Premier of the State Council
Qiao Shi	Secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Secretary of the CPC Political and Legislative Affairs Committee
Hu Qili	Secretariat of the Communist Party of China Central Committee>Secretariat of the Communist Party
Yao Yilin	Vice Premier of the State Council
Yang Shangkun	President of the People's Republic of China Vice-Chairman of the Central Military Commission
Wan Li	Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
Li Xiannian	Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
Wang Zhen	Vice President of the People's Republic of China
Bo Yibo	Vice-Chairman of the CPC Central Advisory Commission
Xi Zhongxun	Vice-Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee
Jiang Zemin	Politics of Shanghai>Shanghai Municipal Secretary
Zhu Rongji	Mayor of Shanghai
Hu Jintao	Politics of Tibet>Tibet Regional Secretary
Wen Jiabao	Director of the General Office of the Communist Party
Bold text indicates membership in the CPC Politburo Standing Committee

On 4 May, approximately 100,000 students and workers marched in Beijing, making demands for free media and a formal dialogue between the authorities and student-elected representatives. A declaration demanded the government to accelerate political reform.

The government rejected the proposed dialogue, only agreeing to talk to members of appointed student organizations. On 13 May, two days prior to the highly-publicized state visit by the reform-minded General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, huge groups of students occupied Tiananmen Square and started a hunger strike, insisting the government withdraw the accusation made in the ''People's Daily'' editorial and begin talks with the designated student representatives. Hundreds of students went on hunger strikes and were supported by hundreds of thousands of protesting students and part of the population of Beijing, for one week. Protests and strikes began at colleges in other cities, with many students traveling to Beijing to join the demonstration. Generally, the demonstration at Tiananmen Square was well-ordered, with daily marches of students from various Beijing-area colleges displaying their solidarity with the boycott of college classes and with the developing demands of the protest. The students sang ''The Internationale'', the world socialist anthem, on their way to, and within, the square. The students even showed a surprising gesture of respect to the government by helping police arrest three men from Hunan Province, including Yu Zhijian, Yu Dongyue, and Lu Decheng, who had thrown ink on the large portrait of Mao that hangs over the gates of the Forbidden City, just north of the square. The three young men were later sentenced to prison for, respectively, life, 20 years, and 16 years. Two of the men were freed after 10 years, and Yu Dongyue was released after nearly 17 years.

Hunger strikes

To avoid losing momentum, the students decided to hold a hunger strike, which began in May 1989, and which grew to include "more than one thousand persons". The hunger strike brought widespread support for the students and "the ordinary people of Beijing rallied to protect the hunger strikers...because the act of refusing sustenance and courting government reprisals convinced onlookers that the students were not just seeking personal gains but (were) sacrificing themselves for the Chinese people as a whole".

The hunger strike gained significant support nationally for the students and alarmed top Communist Party leadership. The national press, still relatively free to cover ongoing events without propagating the party line, aired talks between Premier Li Peng and student leaders on the evening of 18 May. During the talks, Wu'er Kaixi, Wang Dan, and other protest leaders openly accused the government for being too slow to react and rebuked Li Peng personally, charging that Li did not have "sincerity to conduct real discussions". The discussion did not yield much results, but gained student leaders prominent airtime on national television. Li Peng and other leaders maintained that the government was only trying to "maintain order", and alluded to the students actions as "patriotic".

As the hunger strike escalated, numerous political and civil organizations around the country voiced their concern for the students, many empathizing with their positions. The Chinese Red Cross issued a special notice and sent in a large number of personnel to provide medical services to the hunger strikers on the Square.

On 19 May, shortly after the Standing Committee had decided to call in the military, Zhao Ziyang went to Tiananmen personally in an attempt to neutralize the situation. Zhao was aware that his political career was likely finished. Li Peng, hearing that Zhao was making the trip, accompanied Zhao to the Square, but quickly became agitated and left. Wen Jiabao, who would become Premier himself in 2003, joined Zhao after he arrived. At 4:50 am Zhao made a speech on the Square urging the students to end the hunger strike. He told the students that they were still young and urged them to stay healthy and not to sacrifice themselves so easily. Zhao's emotional speech was applauded by some students on the Square; it would be his last public appearance.

Partially successful attempts were made to negotiate with the government in a location near in Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party headquarters and leadership compound. Because of the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev, foreign media were present in China in large numbers. Their coverage of the protests was extensive and generally favorable towards the protesters, but pessimistic that they would attain their goals. Toward the end of the demonstration, on 30 May, a Goddess of Democracy statue was erected in the Square and came to symbolize the protest to television viewers worldwide.

The Standing Committee of the Politburo, along with the party elders (retired but still-influential former officials of the government and Party), were at first hopeful that the demonstrations would be short-lived or that cosmetic reforms and investigations would satisfy the protesters. They wished to avoid violence if possible, and relied at first on their far-reaching Party apparatus in attempts to persuade the students to abandon the protest and return to their studies. One barrier to effective action was that the leadership itself supported many of the demands of the students, especially the concern with corruption. However, one large problem was that the protests contained many people with varying agendas, and hence it was unclear with whom the government could negotiate, and what the exact demands of the protesters were. The confusion and indecision among the protesters was also mirrored by confusion and indecision within the government. The official media mirrored this indecision as headlines in the ''People's Daily'' alternated between sympathy with the demonstrators and denouncing them.

Among the top leadership, General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was strongly in favour of a soft approach to the demonstrations, while Li Peng was seen to argue in favour of military action. Ultimately the decision to forcefully intervene on the demonstrations was made by a group of Party elders, who saw abandonment of single-party rule as a return of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Although most of these people had no official position, they were able to control the military. Deng Xiaoping was chairman of the Central Military Commission and was able to declare martial law through the State Council; Yang Shangkun was President of the People's Republic of China (a symbolic position under the 1982 Constitution) and the Vice-Chairman of Central Military Commission. The Party elders believed that lengthy demonstrations were a threat to the stability of the country. The demonstrators were seen as tools of advocates of "bourgeois liberalism" who were pulling the strings behind the scenes, as well as tools of elements within the party who wished to further their personal ambitions.

Nationwide and outside mainland China

At the beginning of the movement, the Chinese news media had a rare opportunity to broadcast the news without heavy government censorship. Most of the news media were free to write and report however they wanted, due to lack of control from the central and local governments. The news was spread quickly across the land. According to Chinese news media's report, students and workers in over 400 cities, including cities in Inner Mongolia, also organized and started to protest. People also traveled to the capital to join the protest in the Square.

University students in Shanghai also took to the streets to commemorate the death of Hu Yaobang and protest against certain policies of the government. In many cases, these were supported by the universities' Party committees. Jiang Zemin, then-Municipal Party Secretary, addressed the student protesters in a bandage and 'expressed his understanding', as he was a former student agitator before 1949. But at the same time, he moved swiftly to send in police forces to control the streets and to purge Communist Party leaders who had supported the students.

On 19 April, the editors of the ''World Economic Herald'', a magazine close to reformists, decided to publish, in their 24 April No.439 issue, a commemorative section on Hu. Inside was an article by Yan Jiaqi, which commented favourably on the Beijing student protests of 18 April, and which called for a reassessment of Hu's purge in 1987. On 21 April, a party official of Shanghai asked the editor in chief, Qin Benli, to change some passages. Qin Benli refused, so the official turned to Jiang Zemin, who demanded that the article be censored. By that time, a first batch of copies of the paper had already been delivered. The remaining copies were published with a blank page. On 26 April, the "People's Daily" published its editorial condemning the student protest. Jiang followed this cue and suspended Qin Benli.

In Hong Kong, on 27 May 1989, over 300,000 people gathered at Happy Valley Racecourse for a gathering called "Democratic songs dedicated for China." Many Hong Kong celebrities sang songs and expressed their support for the students in Beijing. The following day, a procession of 1.5 million people, one fourth of Hong Kong's population, led by Martin Lee, Szeto Wah and other organization leaders, paraded through Hong Kong Island. Across the world, especially where Chinese lived, people gathered and protested. Many governments, including those of the USA and Japan, issued warnings advising their own citizens not to go to the PRC.

Military action

20 May – 1 June

The Chinese government declared martial law on 20 May, and deployed People's Liberation Army forces in three to four major vehicle convoys to Beijing. Their entry into the city was blocked at its suburbs by throngs of protesters. Tens of thousands of demonstrators surrounded military vehicles, preventing them from either advancing or retreating. Protesters frequently lectured soldiers on the reasons for their actions and appealed to them to join their cause and provided them with food and water. On 24 May, the army was ordered to withdraw. All government forces retreated to bases outside the city.

Meanwhile, the demonstrations continued. The hunger strike was approaching the end of the third week, and the government resolved to end the matter before deaths occurred. After deliberation among Communist party leaders, the use of the military to resolve the crisis was ordered, and a deep divide in the politburo resulted. General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was ousted from political leadership as a result of his support for the demonstrators.

1–2 June

For the Communist Party of China (CPC), the days leading up to 4 June were crucial in their decision making. The CPC agreed that it was necessary to end the “turmoil,” and that the students occupying the Square should return to their campuses. However, the CPC was struggling with the idea that if it was to put an end to the movement within the next few days, it was likely that force would be necessary to remove the students. In order to carry out the clearing of the Square, the members of the Politburo needed to be in agreement that using martial law to restore order was the only option. On 1 June Li Peng issued a report titled “On the True Nature of the Turmoil”, which was circulated to every member of the Politburo. The report aimed to persuade the Politburo of the necessity and legality of clearing Tiananmen Square by referring to the protestors as terrorists and counterrevolutionaries. The report stated that turmoil was continuing to grow as the students did not have plans to leave the Square, since they were receiving more support.

Further justification for martial law came in the form of a report submitted by the State Security Ministry to Party Central, which emphasized the infiltration of bourgeois liberalism into China and the negative effect that the West – particularly the United States of America – was having on the students. The State Security Ministry expressed its belief that American forces had openly intervened in the student movement in hopes of overthrowing the Communist Party. The report created a sense of urgency within in the CPC, and provided justification for military action.

On 2 June, the student movement saw an increase in action and protest, solidifying the CPC’s decision that it was time to act. Protests broke out as newspapers published articles that called for the students to leave Tiananmen Square and end the movement. Many of the students in the Square were not willing to leave and were outraged by the articles. The students were angered by the ''People’s Daily'' article published on 1 June written by Peking University professors which asked the students to leave the Square and return to their studies on campus. They were also outraged by ''Beijing Daily’s'' 1 June article “Tiananmen, I Cry for You”, written by a fellow student who had become disillusioned with the movement, as he thought it was chaotic and disorganized.

On 2 June, three intellectuals, Liu Xiaobo, Zhou Duo, Gao Xin, and a Taiwanese singer Hou Dejian declared a second hunger strike because they wanted to revive the pro-democracy movement. After weeks of occupying the Square, the students were tired, and dissent between different student groups was growing. In their declaration speech, the hunger strikers openly criticized the government’s suppression of the movement to remind the students that their cause was worth fighting for, and pushed them to continue their occupation of the Square. Consequently, the CPC became more determined to quickly put an end to the student movement, as a second hunger strike seemed to be proof that turmoil was increasing.

During a meeting on 2 June, the CPC formally moved to clear the Square by force. Records from this meeting indicate that the Party Elders, (Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian, Peng Zhen, Yang Shangkun, and Wang Zhen) agreed with the Politburo committee (Li Peng, Qiao Shi, and Yao Yilin) that the Square needed to be cleared as quickly as possible. They also agreed that the Square needed to be cleared as peacefully as possible, but if protesters did not cooperate, the troops were authorized to use force to complete the job. This incident sparked fear that the army and the police were trying to advance into Tiananmen Square. Student leaders issued emergency orders for the students to set up roadblocks at major intersections to prevent the advance of the large numbers of armed troops that were attempting to infiltrate the Square.

3–5 June

Soldiers and tanks from the 27th and 38th Armies of the People's Liberation Army were sent to take control of the Beijing and clear Tiananmen Square. The 27th Army was led by a commander related to Yang Shangkun. Intelligence reports also indicated that 27th and 38th units were brought in from outside provinces because the PLA troops were considered to be sympathetic to the protest and to the people of the city. Reports described the 27th as having been most responsible for civilian deaths and suggested that elements of the 27th established defensive positions in Beijing – not of the sort designed to counter a civilian uprising, but as if to defend against attacks by other military units. There were rumours at the time that high-ranking officials sympathised with the pro-democracy protesters and reports of defiance among other troops. According to the revised edition of ''Political Struggles in China's Reform Era'', Major General Xu Qinxian, commander of the 38th Army, shocked the top leadership when he refused a verbal order from General Li Laizhu to send the 38th in to clear the square; Xu had insisted on a written order. Xu was immediately removed from command and was later jailed for five years and expelled from the Communist Party.

As word spread that hundreds of thousands of troops were approaching from all four corners of the city, residents of Beijing flooded the streets to block them, as they had done two weeks earlier. People set up barricades at every major intersection. At about 10:30 pm, near the Muxidi apartment buildings (home to high-level Party officials and their families), protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police and army vehicles. Many vehicles were set on fire in the streets all around Tiananmen, some with their occupants still inside them. There were reports of soldiers being burned alive in their armoured personnel carriers while others were beaten to death. Soldiers responded by opening fire on protesters with live ammunition, causing casualties among demonstrators. Soldiers also raked apartment buildings in the area with gunfire, and some people inside their apartments or watching the scene from their balconies were shot.

The battle raged in the streets surrounding the Square, with protesters repeatedly advancing toward the PLA and constructing barricades with vehicles, while the PLA attempted to clear the streets using tear gas, gunfire, and tanks. Many injured citizens were saved by rickshaw drivers who ventured into the no-man's-land between the soldiers and crowds and carried the wounded off to hospitals. After the attack on the square, live television coverage showed many people wearing black armbands in protest against the government, crowding various boulevards or congregating by burnt out and smoking barricades. In a couple of cases, soldiers were pulled from tanks, beaten and killed by protesters.

Meanwhile, the PLA systematically established checkpoints around the city, chasing after protesters and blocking off the university district.

Earlier, within the Square itself, there had been a debate between those who wished to withdraw peacefully, including Han Dongfang, and those who wished to stand within the square, such as Chai Ling.

At about 1:00 am, the army finally reached Tiananmen Square and waited for orders from the government. The soldiers had been told not to open fire, but they had also been told that they must clear the square by 6:00 am – with no exceptions or delays. They made a final offer of amnesty if the few thousand remaining students would leave. About 4:00 am, student leaders put the matter to a vote: Leave the square, or stay and face the consequences.

Armored personnel carriers (APCs) rolled up the roads, firing ahead and off to the sides, possibly killing or wounding their own soldiers in the process. BBC reporter Kate Adie spoke of "indiscriminate fire" within the square. Eyewitness reporter Charlie Cole also saw Chinese soldiers firing Type 56 assault rifles into the crowd near an APC which had just been torched and its crew killed. During the night, protester sustained heavy casualties.

Students who sought refuge in buses were pulled out by groups of soldiers and beaten with heavy sticks. Even students attempting to leave the square were beaten. Leaders of the protest inside the square, where some had attempted to erect flimsy barricades ahead of the APCs, were said to have "implored" the students not to use weapons (such as Molotov cocktails) against the oncoming soldiers. Meanwhile, many students apparently were shouting, "Why are you killing us?" Around 4 or 5 am the following morning, 4 June, tanks smashed into the square, crushing vehicles and people with their treads, according to Cole. By 5:40 am 4 June, the Square had been cleared. James Miles, who was the BBC's Beijing correspondent at the time, stated:

I and others conveyed the wrong impression. There was no massacre on Tiananmen Square... Protesters who were still in the square when the army reached it were allowed to leave after negotiations with martial law troops (Only a handful of journalists were on hand to witness this moment [...]). [...] There was no Tiananmen Square massacre, but there was a Beijing massacre.

Richard Roth of CBS reported that he and a colleague were on the south portico of the Great Hall of the People (which forms one of the borders of the Square) led by Richard Roth. In the words of eyewitness CBS news correspondent Richard Roth:

Derek Williams and I were driven in a pair of army jeeps right through the square, almost along its full length, and into the Forbidden City. Dawn was just breaking. There were hundreds of troops in the square ... But we saw no bodies, injured people, ambulances or medical personnel—in short, nothing to even suggest, let alone prove, that a "massacre" had recently occurred in that place... some have found it uncomfortable that all this conforms with what the Chinese government has always claimed, perhaps with a bit of sophistry: that there was no "massacre in Tiananmen Square." But there's no question many people were killed by the army that night around Tiananmen Square, and on the way to it – mostly in the western part of Beijing. Maybe, for some, comfort can be taken in the fact that the government denies that, too.

On the morning of 5 June, protesters tried to enter the blockaded square but were shot at by the soldiers. The soldiers shot them in the back when they were running away. These actions were repeated several times.

"Tank Man"

The suppression of the protest was immortalized in Western media by the famous video footage and photographs of a lone man in a white shirt standing in front of a column of tanks which were attempting to drive out of Tiananmen Square. Taken on 5 June as the column approached an intersection on the Chang'an Avenue, the footage depicted the unarmed man standing in the center of the street, halting the tanks' progress. As the tank driver attempted to go around him, the "Tank Man" moved into the tank's path. He continued to stand defiantly in front of the tanks for some time, then climbed up onto the turret of the lead tank to speak to the soldiers inside. After returning to his position in front of the tanks, the man was pulled aside by a group of people.

Eyewitnesses disagree about the identity of the group who pulled him aside. Jan Wong is convinced the group were concerned citizens helping him away, while Charlie Cole believes that "Tank Man" was probably executed after being taken from the tank by secret police, since the Chinese government could never produce him to hush the outcry from many countries. ''Time Magazine'' dubbed him ''The Unknown Rebel'' and later named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. British tabloid the ''Sunday Express'' reported that the man was 19-year-old student Wang Weilin; however, the validity of this claim is dubious.

What happened to the "Tank Man" following the demonstration is not known. In a speech to the President's Club in 1999, Bruce Herschensohn—former deputy special assistant to President Richard Nixon—reported that he was executed 14 days later. In ''Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now'', Jan Wong writes that the man is still alive and hiding in mainland China. In ''Forbidden City'', Canadian children's author William Bell, claims the man was named Wang Ai-min and was killed on 9 June after being taken into custody. The last official statement from the PRC government about the "Tank Man" came from CPC General Secretary Jiang Zemin in a 1990 interview; when asked about the whereabouts of the "Tank Man", Jiang responded: "I think never killed."

After order was restored in Beijing on 4 June, protests continued throughout much of mainland China for several days. There were large protests in Hong Kong, where people again wore black in protest. There were protests in Guangzhou, and large-scale protests in Shanghai with a general strike. There were also protests in other countries, many adopting the use of black armbands as well. However, the government soon regained control. A political purge followed in which officials responsible for organizing or condoning the protests were removed, and protest leaders jailed. According to Amnesty International at least 300 people were killed in Chengdu on 5 June. Troops in Chengdu used concussion grenades, truncheons, knives and electric cattle prods against civilians. Hospitals were ordered to not accept students and on the second night the ambulance service was stopped by police.

Number of deaths

The number of dead and wounded remains unclear because of the large discrepancies between the different estimates. Some of the early estimates were based on reports of a figure of 2,600 from the Chinese Red Cross. The official Chinese government figure is 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7,000 wounded.

According to an analysis by Nicholas D. Kristof of ''The New York Times'', "The true number of deaths will probably never be known, and it is possible that thousands of people were killed without leaving evidence behind. But based on the evidence that is now available, it seems plausible that about fifty soldiers and policemen were killed, along with 400 to 800 civilians." An intelligence report received by the Soviet politburo estimated that 3,000 protesters were killed, according to a document found in the Soviet archive.

The Chinese government has maintained that there were no deaths within the square itself, although videos taken there at the time recorded the sound of gunshots. State Council claimed that the basic statistics were: "Five thousand PLA soldiers and officers wounded, and more than two thousand local people (counting students, city people, and protesters together) also wounded." Chinese commentators have pointed out that this obvious imbalance in casualties questions the military competence of the PLA. They also said no one died on Tiananmen Square itself. Yuan Mu, the spokesman of the State Council, said that about 300 soldiers and civilians died, including 23 students from universities in Beijing, along with a number of people he described as "ruffians". According to Chen Xitong, Beijing mayor, 200 civilians and several dozen soldiers died. Other sources stated that 3,000 civilians and 6,000 soldiers were injured. In May 2007, CPPCC member from Hong Kong, Chang Ka-mun said 300 to 600 people were killed in Tiananmen Square. He echoed that ''"there were armed thugs who weren't students."''

According to ''The Washington Post'' first Beijing bureau chief, Jay Mathews: "A few people may have been killed by random shooting on streets near the square, but all verified eyewitness accounts say that the students who remained in the square when troops arrived were allowed to leave peacefully. Hundreds of people, most of them workers and passersby, did die that night, but in a different place and under different circumstances." US ambassador James Lilley's account of the massacre notes that US State Department diplomats witnessed Chinese troops opening fire on unarmed people and based on visits to hospitals around Beijing a minimum of hundreds had been killed.

A strict focus on the number of deaths within Tiananmen Square itself does not give an accurate picture of the carnage and overall death count, since Chinese civilians were fired on in the streets surrounding Tiananmen Square. In addition, students are reported to have been fired on after they left the Square, especially in the area near the Beijing concert hall.

Estimates of deaths from different sources, in descending order:

10,000 dead (including civilians and soldiers) – Soviet Union. 7,000 deaths – NATO intelligence. 4,000 to 6,000 civilians killed, but no one really knows – Edward Timperlake. Over 3,700 killed, excluding disappearance or secret deaths and those denied medical treatment – PLA defector citing a document circulating among officers. 2,600 had officially died by the morning of 4 June (later denied) – the Chinese Red Cross. An unnamed Chinese Red Cross official estimated that, in total, 5,000 people were killed and 30,000 injured. Closer to 1,000 deaths, according to Amnesty International and some of the protest participants, as reported in a ''Time'' article. Other statements by Amnesty have characterized the number of deaths as hundreds. 300 to 1,000 according to a Western diplomat that compiled estimates. 400 to 800 plausible according to the ''New York Times''' Nicholas D. Kristof. He developed this estimate using information from hospital staff and doctors, and from "a medical official with links to most hospitals". 180–500 casualties, according to a declassified NSA document which referred to early casualty estimates. 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7,000 wounded, according to the Chinese government. 186 named individuals confirmed dead at the end of June 2006 – Professor Ding Zilin of the Tiananmen Mothers. The Tiananmen Mothers' list includes some people whose deaths were not directly at the hands of the army, such as a person who committed suicide after the incident on 4 June.

Reactions

Internal media reporting

The English section of China Radio International (CRI) accurately reported the events on 4 June to the rest of the world. The CRI broadcast “several thousand people, mostly innocent citizens” had been killed by “heavily armed soldiers”.

The next day, The Shanghai Municipal Government sent out 6,500 people to remove the roadblocks. According to reports, “At 8:45 pm the number 161 train from Beijing ran over nine people who had gathered at the spectacle of a blocked locomotive. Five of them died. By 10 pm more than thirty thousand people had gathered at the scene, interrupting rail traffic and creating a disturbance. Protesters beat up the train engineer, set fire to railcars, and prevented fire trucks from entering the site”. More and more students erected roadblocks and interrupted traffic, and approximately 3,000 students left campus.

On the evening of 7 June, Shanghai Mayor Zhu Rongji gave a televised speech, in which he stated “As mayor, I solemnly declare that neither the Party Committee nor the Municipal Government has considered calling in the army. We have never envisaged military control or martial law; we seek only to stabilize Shanghai, to steady the situation, to insist on production, and to ensure normal life”.

Xi’an

On 5 and 6 June, students marched, set up roadblocks, and stopped workers from entering factories. By 8 June, provincial authorities said that the city had stabilized and called for “restraint of rioters and avoidance of face-to-face confrontation or any escalation of conflict”. Some also blocked the “Yangtze River Railway bridge for eight hours, and another four thousand massed in the square in front of the railway station”. Rail traffic on the Beijing-Guangzhou and Wuhan-Dalian lines was interrupted. The students also urged workers from major enterprises to go on strike. A small group of students stopped a freight train and “poured gasoline over the freight cars but were stopped in the nick of time by arriving police”. In the early evening traffic was still blocked. Students also staged “a sit-in at the south end of the highway section of the Nanjing Yangtze River bridge and at the Zhongyangmen section of the Beijing Shanghai rail line”. He said that "the entire imperialist Western world plans to make all socialist countries discard the socialist road and then bring them under the monopoly of international capital and onto the capitalist road".

International reaction

thumb|right|A memorial in the Polish city of Wrocław depicting a destroyed bicycle and a tank track is a symbol of the Tiananmen Square protests'''

The events at Tiananmen were the first of their type shown in detail on Western television. The Chinese government's response was denounced, particularly by Western governments and media. Criticism came from both Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Australia and some east Asian and Latin American countries. Notably, many Asian countries remained silent throughout the protests; the government of India responded to the massacre by ordering the state television to pare down the coverage to the barest minimum, so as not to jeopardize a thawing in relations with China, and to offer political empathy for the events. North Korea, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany, among others, supported the Chinese government and denounced the protests. Overseas Chinese students demonstrated in many cities in Europe, America, the Middle East and Asia.

Aftermath

Arrests and persecution of student leaders

Wu Guoguang, former aide to Zhao Ziyang was quoted as saying that the account of 38th Army commander Maj. Gen. Xu's revealed for the first time that the Central Military Commission issued verbal orders fearing written records of the crackdown would go down in history; he said this suggested they knew the action was unlawful. Chinese authorities summarily tried and executed many of the workers they arrested in Beijing. In contrast, the students – many of whom came from relatively affluent backgrounds and were well-connected – received much lighter sentences. Wang Dan, the student leader who topped the most wanted list, spent seven years in prison. Many of the students and university staff implicated were permanently politically stigmatized, some never to be employed again. Some dissidents were able to escape to overseas under Operation Yellowbird, organized from Hong Kong.

Smaller protest actions continued in other cities for a few days. Some university staff and students who had witnessed the killings in Beijing organised or spurred commemorative events upon their return to school. At Shanghai's prestigious Jiaotong University, for example, the party secretary organised a public commemoration event, with engineering students producing a large metal wreath. However, these commemorations were quickly put down, with those responsible being put to death by firing squad.

During and after the demonstration, the authorities attempted to arrest and prosecute the student leaders of the Chinese democracy movement, notably Wang Dan, Chai Ling, Zhao Changqing and Wuer Kaixi. Wang Dan was arrested, convicted and sent to prison, then allowed to emigrate to the United States on the grounds of medical parole. As a lesser figure in the demonstrations, Zhao was released after six months in prison. However, he was once again incarcerated for continuing to petition for political reform in China. Wuer Kaixi escaped to Taiwan. He is married and holds a job as a political commentator on Taiwanese national radio. Chai Ling escaped to France, and then to the United States. In a public speech given at the University of Michigan in November 2007, Wang Dan commented on the current status of former student leaders: Chai Ling started a hi-tech company in the US, while Li Lu became an investment banker in Wall Street and started a company. Wang Dan said his plan was to find an academic job in the US after receiving his PhD from Harvard University, although he was eager to return to China if permitted. Chai Ling has since started an organization devoted to helping women in China and to fighting the One Child Policy. The organization is called All Girls Allowed (at: allgirlsallowed.org.)

Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao were arrested in late 1989 for their involvement in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Chinese authorities alleged they were the “black hands” behind the movement. Both Chen and Wang rejected the allegations made against them. They were put on trial in 1990 and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

High-level political changes

To purge sympathizers of Tiananmen demonstrators, the Communist Party initiated a one and half year long program similar to Anti-Rightist Movement. It aimed to deal "strictly with those inside the party with serious tendencies toward bourgeois liberalization". Four million people were reportedly investigated for their role in the protests. Furthermore, more than 30,000 communist officers were deployed to assess political reliability of more than one million government officials. The authorities arrested tens if not hundreds of thousands people across the country. Some were seized at broad daylight while they walked on streets, others were captured at night. Many were jailed or sent to labor camps. They were often denied access to see their families and often put in cells so crowded that not everyone had space to sleep. Dissidents shared cells with murderers and rapists, and torture was not uncommon.

The Party leadership expelled Zhao Ziyang from the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (PSC), because he opposed martial law, and Zhao remained under house arrest until his death. Hu Qili, a PSC member who opposed the martial law but abstained from voting, was also removed from the committee. He was, however, able to retain his party membership, and after "changing his opinion", was reassigned as deputy minister of Machine-Building and Electronics Industry. Another reform-minded Chinese leader, Wan Li, was also put under house arrest immediately after he stepped out of his plane at Beijing Capital International Airport upon returning from his shortened trip abroad, with the official excuse of "health reasons." When Wan Li was released from his house arrest after he finally "changed his opinion" he, like Qiao Shi, was transferred to a different position with equal rank but mostly ceremonial role. Several Chinese ambassadors abroad claimed political asylum.

The event elevated Jiang Zemin – then Party Secretary of Shanghai – to become the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. Jiang's decisive actions in Shanghai, in closing down reform-leaning publications and preventing deadly violence, won him support from party elders in Beijing. Members of the government prepared a white paper explaining the government's viewpoint on the protests. An anonymous source within the PRC government smuggled the document out of China, and Public Affairs published it in January 2001 as the ''Tiananmen Papers''. The papers include a quote by Communist Party elder Wang Zhen which alludes to the government's response to the demonstrations.

Media and discourse

State media mostly gave reports sympathetic to the students in the immediate aftermath. As a result, those responsible were all later removed. Two news anchors who reported this event on 4 June in the daily 1900 hours (7:00 pm) news report on China Central Television were fired because they showed their sad emotions. Wu Xiaoyong, the son of a Communist Party of China Central Committee member, and former PRC foreign minister and vice premier Wu Xueqian were removed from the English Program Department of Chinese Radio International. Editors and other staff at the ''People's Daily'' (the newspaper of the Communist Party of China), including its director Qian Liren and Editor-in-Chief Tan Wenrui, were also removed from their posts because of reports in the paper which were sympathetic towards the students. Several editors were arrested, with Wu Xuecan, who organised the publication of an unauthorised Extra edition, sentenced to four years' imprisonment.

Journalist Rob Gifford said that much of the political freedoms and debate that occurred post-Mao and pre-Tiananmen ended after Tiananmen. For instance, some of the authors of the film ''River Elegy'' (''He Shang'') were arrested, and some of the authors fled Mainland China. Gifford concluded that "China the concept, China the empire, China the construct of two thousand years of imperial thinking" has forbidden and may always forbid "independent thinking" as that would lead to the questioning of China's political system. Gifford added that people born after 1970 had "near-complete depoliticization" while older intellectuals no longer focus on political change and instead focus on economic reform.

Impact

International image

The Tiananmen Square protests damaged the reputation of the PRC internationally, particularly in the West. Western media had been invited to cover the Sino-Soviet summit in May and were thus in an excellent position to cover some of the military action live through networks such as the BBC and CNN. Protesters seized this opportunity, creating signs and banners designed for international television audiences. Coverage was further facilitated by the sharp conflicts within the Chinese government about how to handle the protests. Thus, broadcasting was not immediately stopped.

All international networks were eventually ordered to terminate broadcasts from the city during the military action, with the government shutting down the satellite transmissions. Broadcasters attempted to defy these orders by reporting via telephone. Footage was quickly smuggled out of the country, including the image of "the unknown rebel." The only network which was able to record some images during the night was Televisión Española of Spain (TVE).

CBS correspondent Richard Roth and his cameraman were imprisoned during the military action. Roth was taken into custody while in the midst of filing a report from the Square via mobile phone. In a frantic voice, he could be heard repeatedly yelling what sounded like "Oh, no! Oh, no!" before the phone was disconnected. He was later released, suffering a slight injury to his face in a scuffle with Chinese authorities attempting to confiscate his phone. Roth later explained he had actually been telling police, "I'll go! I'll go!"

Images of the protests would strongly shape Western views and policy toward the PRC throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century. There was considerable sympathy for the student protests among Chinese students in the West. Almost immediately, both the United States and the European Union announced an official arms embargo, and China's image as a reforming country and a valuable ally against the Soviet Union was replaced by that of a repressive authoritarian regime. The Tiananmen protests were frequently invoked to argue against trade liberalization with mainland China and by the United States' Blue Team as evidence that the PRC government was an aggressive threat to world peace and US interests.

Meanwhile, state media was ordered to focus on dead soldiers, screening images often on television. Among overseas Chinese students, the Tiananmen Square protests triggered the formation of Internet news services such as the China News Digest and the NGO China Support Network. In the aftermath of Tiananmen, organizations such as the China Alliance for Democracy and the Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars were formed, although these organizations would have limited political impact beyond the mid-1990s.

Domestic political trends

Despite early expectations in the West that PRC government would soon collapse and be replaced by the democratic governance, the Communist Party of China maintained its grip on power, and the student movement which started at Tiananmen was in complete disarray.

In Hong Kong, the Tiananmen square protests led to fears that the PRC would renege on its commitments under one country, two systems following the impending handover in 1997, leading the new governor Chris Patten to attempt to expand the franchise for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong which led to friction with the PRC. There have been large candlelight vigils attended by tens of thousands in Hong Kong every year since 1989 and these vigils have continued following the transfer of power to the PRC in 1997.

The protests also marked a shift in the political conventions which governed politics in the People's Republic. Prior to the protests, under the 1982 Constitution, the President was a largely symbolic role. By convention, power was distributed between the positions of President, Premier, and the CPC General Secretary, all of whom were intended to be different people to prevent the excesses of Mao-style dictatorship. However, after President Yang Shangkun used his reserve powers as Vice-chairman of Central Military Commission to mobilize the military, the Presidency again became a position imbued with real power. Subsequently, the President became the same person as the Party General Secretary, and wielded paramount power.

In 1989, neither the Chinese military nor the Beijing police had adequate anti-riot gear, such as rubber bullets and tear gas commonly used in Western nations to break up riots. After the Tiananmen Square protests, riot police in Chinese cities were equipped with non-lethal equipment for riot control.

Economic impact

There was a significant impact on the Chinese economy after the incident. Foreign loans to China were suspended by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and governments; tourism revenue decreased from US$2.2 billion to US$1.8 billion; foreign direct investment commitments were cancelled and there was a rise in defense spending from 8.6% in 1986, to 15.5% in 1990, reversing a previous 10 year decline. The Chinese Premier Li Peng visited the United Nations Security Council on 31 January 1992, and argued that the economic and arms embargoes on China were a violation of national sovereignty.

In the immediate aftermath of the protests, some within the Chinese government attempted to curtail free market reforms that had been undertaken as part of Chinese economic reform and reinstitute administrative economic controls. However, these efforts met with stiff resistance from provincial governors and broke down completely in the early 1990s as a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Deng Xiaoping's trip to the south. The continuance of economic reform led to economic growth in the 1990s, which allowed the government to regain much of the support that it had lost in 1989. In addition, none of the current PRC leadership played any active role in the decision to move against the demonstrators, and one major leadership figure Premier Wen Jiabao was Director of the Central Party Office and accompanied Zhao Ziyang to meet the demonstrators.

The protest leaders at Tiananmen were unable to produce a coherent movement or ideology that would last past the mid-1990s. Many of the student leaders came from relatively "well-off" sectors of society and were seen as out of touch with common people. A number of them were socialists. Many of the organizations which were started in the aftermath of Tiananmen soon fell apart due to personal infighting. Several overseas democracy activists were supportive of limiting trade with mainland China, which significantly decreased their popularity both within China and among the overseas Chinese community. A number of NGOs based in the US, which aim to bring democratic reform to China and relentlessly protest human rights violations that occur in China, remain. One of the oldest and most prominent of them, the China Support Network (CSN), was founded in 1989 by a group of concerned US and Chinese activists in response to Tiananmen Square.

Continuing issues

WikiLeaks Tiananmen cables

On 4 June 2011 WikiLeaks published 5 cables sent to Washington by the US embassy in Beijing. The State Department had already declassified parts of the cables in the late 1990s.

Forbidden topic in mainland China

The Communist Party of China (CPC) does not allow discussion of the Tiananmen Square protests as it is considered taboo. The CPC has taken measures to block or censor information. Textbooks reportedly have little, if any, information related to the protests. Access to media and internet resources on the subject are restricted or blocked by censors.

The CPC’s official stance towards the incident is that its actions were necessary in order to control a 'political disturbance' and helped to ensure stability and economic success. President Hu Jintao reiterated this stance during a visit to France in 2004, stating that "the government took determined action to calm the political storm of 1989, and enabled China to enjoy a stable development." President Hu stated that the government would not change its view on the protests. An overview of the political decisions by the CPC leadership during the protests is available through a collection of documents compiled in a book titled the Tiananmen Papers. However, the authenticity of these documents is contested by the CPC.

The public memory of the Tiananmen Square protests has been suppressed by the CPC since 1989. Print media containing reference to the protests must be consistent with the government’s version of events. As of 2009, internet users in China who search for '4 June' on search engines have the results censored. If a user attempts to access an English language version of the Google search engine in China, they are redirected to the Chinese version where the results of '4 June' are not related to the massacre. The Chinese-language versions of Wikipedia and YouTube are not censored, however, access to these websites are blocked in China. Presently, many Chinese citizens are reluctant to speak about the protests due to the possibility of repercussions such as jail time. However, some individuals do publicly speak out such as Ding Zilin, and organizations like Tiananmen Mothers. In 2007, several Chengdu Wanbao newspaper staff were fired after failing to recognize an advertisement that had paid tribute to the mothers of victims of the massacre. The clerk that was in charge of approving advertisements allegedly did not recognize the meaning of the advertisement because she was too young.

Leading up to and during the 20th anniversary of the massacre on 4 June 2009, the CPC increased security around the square. Members of the Public Security Bureau and the People’s Armed Police were present during the 20th anniversary at the square in uniform along with several hundred plain clothes officers. Tourists were allowed into the square during the anniversary but were subject to having their bags searched. Journalists however, were denied entry into the square. Journalists were prevented from reporting on protest related issues through the media and internet. Journalists who attempted to film at the square or interview dissidents were briefly detained. They were also barred from filming the raising of the Chinese flag. Also leading up to the 20th anniversary the CPC began to censor internet websites and social networking services such as Twitter, Flickr and Hotmail. It has also been reported that issues of The Financial Times and The Economist containing articles about the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre had the pages ripped out. Staff at a Chinese TV station were suspended from their jobs because they allowed footage of the Tank Man and a Hong Kong candlelight vigil for the 20th anniversary of the protests be broadcast in the mainland. Hong Kong is the only Chinese territory where people are permitted to demonstrate about the massacre.

Dissidents in Beijing were told to leave the city or were forced to stay inside their homes. Others were temporarily relocated to other areas of the country. They were told not to speak to media, write articles, give interviews or organize demonstrations about the anniversary and have been closely monitored by authorities. Foreign journalists are also monitored in order to prevent contact with dissidents. Dissidents who fled the country after 1989 were denied entry into Hong Kong and Macau for the 20th anniversary.

Over the years some Chinese citizens have called for a reassessment of the protests and compensation from the government to victims’ families. One group in particular, Tiananmen Mothers, seeks compensation, vindication for victims and the right to receive donations from within the mainland and abroad. Zhang Shijun, a former soldier who was involved in the military crackdown, had published an open letter to President Hu Jintao seeking to have the government reevaluate its position on the protests. He was subsequently arrested and taken from his home.

Censored books, films and TV shows in mainland China

''Political Struggles in China's Reform Era'' by Yang Jisheng, for featuring secret interviews with Zhao Ziyang and rejecting the Chinese government's position on the protests. In 2006, the novel ''Forbidden City'', by William Bell, a fictionalised version of the protests, was banned.

''Summer Palace'' was banned in 2006, ostensibly because it was screened without permission, but likely also because of its mention of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. ''Collection of June Fourth Poems'', a collection of poems about the protests. Writings or interviews with Zhao Ziyang or Bao Tong are banned. As such, ''Conversations with Zhao Ziyang in House Arrest'' by Zong Fengmin was not published due to government pressure. However, ''Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang'' was published in May 2009 after tapes were smuggled out of China. International media programs mentioning the event or anniversaries are blacked out in broadcasts, such as CNN available in Chinese hotels and homes for foreigners.

History deleted inside mainland China

Following the protests, officials banned controversial films and books, and shut down a large number of newspapers. Within one year, 12 percent of all newspapers, 8 percent of publishing companies, 13 percent of social science periodicals and more than 150 films were banned or shut down. In addition to this, the government also announced it had seized 32 million contraband books and 2.4 million video and audio cassettes.

Currently, due to strong Chinese government censorship including Internet censorship, the news media are forbidden to report anything related to the protests. Websites related to the protest are blocked on the mainland. A search for Tiananmen Square protest information on the Internet in Mainland China largely returns no results, apart from the government-mandated version of the events and the official view, which are mostly found on Websites of ''People's Daily'' and other heavily-controlled media.

In January 2006, Google agreed to censor their mainland China site, Google.cn, to remove information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and Taiwan independence. When people searched for those topics, it listed on the page in Chinese, "According to local laws and regulations and policies, some search results are not displayed." Google withdrew its cooperation with this censorship in January 2010. The uncensored Wikipedia articles on the 1989 protests, both in English and Chinese Wikipedia, have been attributed as a cause of the blocking of Wikipedia by the government in mainland China. The ban of Wikipedia in mainland China was subsequently lifted (except for visual media such as photographs), but the link to this incident in Chinese Wikipedia remains dead.

In 2006, the American PBS program "Frontline" broadcast a segment filmed at Peking University, many of whose students participated in the 1989 protests. Four present-day students were shown a picture of the Tank Man, but none of them could identify what was happening in the photo. Some responded that it was a military parade, or an artwork.

On 15 May 2007, Ma Lik, the leader of the main loyalist political party in Hong Kong, provoked much criticism when he said that "there was not a massacre" during the protests, as there was "no intentional and indiscriminate shooting." He said Hong Kong was "not mature enough" for democracy for believing foreigners' rash claims that a massacre took place. He said that Hong Kong showed through its lack of patriotism and national identity that it would thus "not be ready for democracy until 2022." His remarks were met with wide condemnation from the public. He later acknowledged he might have been "rash and frivolous" with his comments but insisted that it was not a massacre.

On 4 June 2007, the anniversary of the massacre, a notice reading, "Paying tribute to the strongwilled mothers of 64" was published in the ''Chengdu Evening News'' newspaper. The matter was investigated by the Chinese government, and three editors were fired from the paper. The clerk who approved the ad had reportedly never heard of 4 June military action and had been told that the date was a reference to a mining disaster.

In late April 2009, Internet access to English-language media on the events at Tiananmen, including video, news reports and Wikipedia, was uncensored in mainland China for the first time. Articles were still mostly censored on the Chinese version of Google, though some videos were viewable. Additionally, filming in Tiananmen Square on the 20th anniversary of the 1989 protests was discouraged by plainclothes police officers wielding umbrellas and stepping in front of the cameras of journalists near the square.

EU-US arms embargo

The European Union and United States embargo on armament sales to the PRC, put in place as a result of the violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, still remains in place. The PRC has been calling for a lifting of the ban for many years and has had a varying amount of support from members of the Council of the European Union. In early 2004, France spearheaded a movement within the EU to lift the ban. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder publicly added his voice to that of former French President Jacques Chirac to have the embargo lifted.

The arms embargo was discussed at a PRC-EU summit in the Netherlands between 7 and 9 December 2004. In the run-up to the summit, the PRC had attempted to increase pressure on the EU Council to lift the ban by warning that the ban could hurt PRC-EU relations. PRC Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui had called the ban "outdated", and he told reporters, "If the ban is maintained, bilateral relations will definitely be affected." In the end, the EU Council did not lift the ban. EU spokeswoman Françoise le Bail said there were still concerns about the PRC's commitment to human rights. But at the time, the EU did state a commitment to work towards lifting the ban.

The PRC continued to press for the embargo to be lifted, and some member states began to drop their opposition. Jacques Chirac pledged to have the ban lifted by mid-2005. However, the Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China passing in March 2005 increased cross-strait tensions, damaging attempts to lift the ban, and several EU Council members changed their minds. Members of the U.S. Congress had also proposed restrictions on the transfer of military technology to the EU if they lifted the ban. Thus the EU Council failed to reach a consensus, and although France and Germany pushed to have the embargo lifted, the embargo was maintained.

Britain took charge of the EU Presidency in July 2005, making the lifting of the embargo all but impossible for the duration of that period. Britain had always had some reservations on lifting the ban and wished to put it to the side, rather than sour EU-US relations further. Other issues such as the failure of the European Constitution and the ensuing disagreement over the European Budget and Common Agricultural Policy superseded the matter of the embargo in importance. Britain wanted to use its presidency to push for wholesale reform of the EU, so the lifting of the ban became even more unlikely. The election of José Manuel Barroso as European Commission President also made a lifting of the ban more difficult. At a meeting with Chinese leaders in mid-July 2005, he said that China's poor record on human rights would slow any changes to the EU's ban on arms sales to China.

Political will also changed in countries that had previously been more in favor of lifting the embargo. On 22 November 2005, Schröder, who supported lifting, lost the 2005 German federal election to Angela Merkel, who was strongly against lifting the ban; Outgoing French President Jacques Chirac was succeeded by Nicolas Sarkozy. As both were in favour of lifting the embargo, the French foreign policy on this matter remained unchanged.

In addition, the European Parliament has consistently opposed the lifting of the arms embargo to the PRC. Though its agreement is not necessary for lifting the ban, many argue it reflects the will of the European people better as it is the only directly elected European body–the EU Council is appointed by member states. The European Parliament has repeatedly opposed any lifting of the arms embargo on the PRC:

The resolution of 28 April 2005, on the Annual Report on Human Rights in the World 2004 and the EU's policy on the matter,

The resolution of 23 October 2003, on the annual report from the Council to the European Parliament on the main aspects and basic choices of CFSP, it insisted on a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue through dialogue across the Taiwan Straits and called on China to withdraw missiles in the coastal provinces adjacent to the Taiwan Straits, and

The resolution on relations between the EU, China and Taiwan and security in the Far East of 7 July 2005. The EP has noted several times that the current human rights situation in China, with regards to fundamental civil, cultural and political freedoms does not meet even the international standards recognized by China.

The arms embargo has limited China's options from where it may seek military hardware. Among the sources that were sought included the former Soviet bloc that it had a strained relationship with as a result of the Sino-Soviet split. Other willing suppliers have previously included Israel and South Africa, but American pressure has restricted future co-operation.

Compensation

Although the Chinese government never officially acknowledged wrongdoing when it came to the incident, in April 2006 a payment was made to the mother of one of the victims, the first publicized case of the government offering redress to a Tiananmen-related victim's family. The payment was termed a "hardship assistance", given to Tang Deying (唐德英) whose son, Zhou Guocong () died at the age of 15 while in police custody in Chengdu on 6 June 1989, two days after the Chinese Army dispersed the Tiananmen protesters. She was reportedly paid CNY70,000 (approximately $10,250 USD). This has been welcomed by various Chinese activists, but was regarded by some as a measure to maintain social stability and not believed to herald a changing of the Party's official position.

United Nations report

The Committee Against Torture met for its forty-first session from 3–21 November 2008 to consider reports submitted by member states under article 19 of the Convention. The Committee found that China’s response to the 1989 Democracy movement was worrying. The Committee was concerned that despite the multiple requests by relatives of people "killed, arrested or disappeared on or following the 4 June 1989 Beijing suppression," there was a lack of investigations into these matters. It was also concerned with the failure of the Chinese Government to inform families of the fate of relatives involved, and it regretted that those responsible for the use of excessive force have not “faced any sanction, administrative or criminal." The Committee recommended that:

The State party should conduct a full and impartial investigation into the suppression of the Democracy Movement in Beijing in June 1989, provide information on the persons who are still detained from that period, inform the family members of their findings, offer apologies and reparation as appropriate and prosecute those found responsible for excessive use of force, torture and other illtreatment.

In December 2009 the Chinese Government responded to the Committee’s recommendations. It stated that the government had closed the case concerning the “political turmoil in the spring and summer of 1989." It also stated that the “practice of the past 20 years has made it clear that the timely and decisive measures taken by the Chinese Government at the time were necessary and correct." It claimed that the labelling of the “incident as ‘the Democracy Movement’” is a “distortion of the nature of the incident." According to the Chinese Government these observations were “inconsistent with the Committee’s responsibilities."

Cultural references

Songs

This event has inspired many references within lyrics and album art – both in political and non-political usages.

The second music video for Michael Jackson's song They Don't Care About Us contains a video clip of the Tank Man standing in front of the tanks at the beginning of the song.The British rock band The Cure, during a concert in Rome on 4 June 1989, dedicated their last encore, "Faith," to "everyone that died today in China." Singer Robert Smith extended the song with improvised lyrics about a person who has a gun held to their mouth and urged to say "Yes" to the question "Do you love me?", but finally refuses to do so. The bootlegged recording of this 15 minute version is known as "Tiananmen Faith". In the same year, Joan Baez wrote and recorded her folk anthem "China" to commemorate the democratic revolt. Billy Joel's history-themed single "We Didn't Start the Fire", released late 1989, mentions the event in the line "China's under martial law."

In 1990, on the first anniversary of the massacre, folk singer Phillip Morgan released the single "Blood is on the Square", which discusses the protests and massacre.

The song ''Tin Omen'' by the Canadian industrial band Skinny Puppy is a reference to this uprising and massacre.

Leonard Cohen's song "Democracy" from his 1992 album The Future states that democracy is coming "from those nights in Tiananmen Square".

The song "Complain" by King's X, on their 1994 album Dogman, contains the lyric "China boy standing up to a tank" in a list of the world's problems, contrasting them to the relatively minor problems that people often complain about.

Progressive rock group Marillion wrote a song titled "The King of Sunset Town" that uses imagery from the Tiananmen Square incidents, such as "a puppet king on the Fourth of June" and "before the Twenty-Seventh came". The song was released on their album Seasons End in September 1989.

Armenian-American rock band System of a Down makes a reference to the protests in the song Hypnotize with the lines,"Why don't you ask the kids at Tiananmen Square?/Was fashion the reason why they were there."

American rock and folk music band The Hooters referred to the event in their hit song 500 Miles (from the album Zig Zag, recorded 1989), which is an updated version of the 1960s folk song. The third verse begins with words: "A hundred tanks along the square, One man stands and stops them there, Someday soon the tide'll turn and I'll be free"

''Shiny Happy People'' by R.E.M. is supposedly an ironic reference to a piece of roughly translated Chinese propaganda regarding the massacre, two years before the song was released. The inference apparently relates to how politics is controlled by those with children in powerful positions, not idealistic revolting unhappy students on the ground in Tiananmen Square. The idea is that propaganda is often used to cover up stark weaknesses in political systems. The song is mockingly played to encourage unknown political candidates to be upbeat even under fire.

American thrash metal band Slayer released a song "Blood Red" on their 1990 album titled "Seasons in the Abyss", which was inspired by the Tiananmen Square incident. The song includes the lines: "Peaceful confrontation meets war machine, Seizing all civil liberties... No disguise can deface evil, The massacre of innocent people." The same year, another American thrash metal band Testament released the song "Seven Days of May" protesting the Beijing massacre (though the assault on Tiananmen Square took place on 3 June, not in May) on their "Souls of Black" album, including the words: "In the square they play the game, That's when the tanks and the army came... They called the murders minimal, Described their victims as criminals... Dead souls like you and me, Who only wanted free society".

British folk metal pioneers Skyclad also mention the Tiananmen Square massacre in their 1992 release "A Burnt Offering for the Bone Idol" in the song "A Broken Promised Land". The song includes the lines : "The voices on your TV are like whispers in a dream, someone else's nightmares in a place you've never been, but the streets run red round Tianneman Square – and the blood won't wash away, you don't recognise their faces – so young and dead they stay. You've never had to answer to the barrel of a gun, so how could you expect... (expect what was to come?)"

American songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter references the event in her song '4 June 1989,' released in 2010 on the album 'The Age of Miracles.'

In 1992 Roger Waters released Amused to Death, an album which included the song "Watching TV", a rumination on the Western response to the protests in Tiananmen.

In 1996, a song called Tiananmen Man, based on the picture of the Tank Man, appeared on a Nevermore second album ''The Politics of Ecstasy''.

In 2008, the rock group Filthy T released a song called 'Catch Me If You Can' on their album 'All is Filthy in Love and War' which contained the lyrics "fists in the air like Tiananmen Square", a reference to the rebellious attitude of the protesters.

Television

A primetime special hosted by Tom Brokaw honored both the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing and the fall of the Berlin Wall in that momentous year for human rights around the world, 1989.

CNN news anchor Kyra Phillips drew criticism in March 2006 when she compared the 2006 youth protests in France, in which it was later determined that no one was killed, to the Tiananmen Square protests, saying "Sort of brings back memories of Tiananmen Square, when you saw these activists in front of tanks." CNN's Chris Burns told French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy that her comments were "regrettable" and would receive some disciplinary actions.

In April 2006, the PBS series ''Frontline'' produced an episode titled ''The Tank Man'', which examined his role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests and the change that has overtaken the PRC economically and politically since.

On 3 June 2009 the BBC aired the documentary "Kate Adie returns to Tiananmen", in which reporter Kate Adie revisits China and recalls the events she witnessed in 1989.

Movies

The movie ''Rapid Fire'', starring Brandon Lee, depicts images of the Tiananmen Square killings. In the movie, Brandon Lee's character is the son of a US government employee who died in the Tiananmen Square massacre; it is this death that leads to the cynicism and anger of Lee's character through-out much of the movie. Near the end, Powers Booth's character hands him a folder that, it is assumed, contains additional information behind his father's death.

''Summer Palace'' (2006) by Chinese director Lou Ye contains re-enacted scenes from Beijing streets during the days of the protests in Tiananmen Square. The movie was banned from public viewing.

See also

List of massacres in China

Zhang Zhixin

''Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang''

Forbidden City (novel)

Civil resistance

Nonviolent resistance

Chinese democracy movement

The Gate of Heavenly Peace (documentary)

Tank Man

Reactions:

''Executive Order 12711''

''Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992''

Notes

Further reading

Review and synopis of the book is in the journal Foreign Affairs at The Tiananmen Papers

"Deng Is Said to Have Backed Tiananmen Violence" article by Michael Wines and Andrew Jacobs in ''The New York Times'' 4 June 2010

Internet video

(Chinese MTV) 为1989六四天安门群星演唱MTV 历史的伤口 Chinese MTV ''The wound of history''

(Cantonese MTV) 香港支聯會紀念六四20周年歌曲-《二十年》 改編：《歷史的傷口》Cantonese MTV ''Twenty years

(Chinese MTV) 【透视中国】最后一枪(MTV)纪念"6・4" 20周年

The Economist ''Stuart Franklin's Tiananmen Square''

(French) TSR Archives on the event

BBC News Report by Kate Adie on 4 June 1989

External links

Condolence Book for Victims of Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 June 4th

Video-1 detailing the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989

Video-2 detailing the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989

Origins & Consequences of the 1989 Massacre – Parts1, 2 & 3 from the World Socialist Website

Hong Kong Alliance In Support Of Patriotic Democratic Movements Of China

Eyeballing Tiananmen Square Massacre – Photo Gallery

Tiananmen Square Massacre – slideshow by ''The First Post''

Eyewitness account of events on the night of 4 June

Eyewitness account of the massacre from a Marxist's Perspective

Human Rights in China's Section on 1989 Democracy movement

''The Gate of Heavenly Peace – Feature-length Documentary''

''The Myth of Tiananmen And the Price of a Passive Press'' Columbia Journalism Review

Continuing the Revolution is Not a Dinner Party – a Marxist-Leninist analysis of the events

Secret recordings resurrect Chinese PM’s criticism of Tiananmen crackdown – Radio France Internationale

"The Tank Man", 2006 PBS documentary

BBC report about Tiananmen Protests

BBC's "Witnessing Tiananmen: Clearing the square" with eyewitness accounts of Tiananmen

The U.S. "Tiananmen Papers" – US Perceptions of the crisis

''The Virtual Museum of China '89''

Tiananmen Square, 1989 ''The Declassified History''

''Victims of 4 June Massacre''

"Tiananmen: Love Squared", an educational romantic comedy on the subject.

"Uncivil Society, or, Orientalism and Tiananmen," 1989, an academic article on the meaning and politics of Tiananmen.

Category:1989 in China Category:Conflicts in 1989 Category:History of Beijing Category:History of the People's Republic of China Category:Anti-communism Category:Massacres in China Category:Protests in the People's Republic of China Category:Student protests in the People's Republic of China Category:Riots and civil unrest in the People's Republic of China

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