Twenty-five years ago on Wednesday, the Chinese government, acting under martial law, deployed 200,000 troops into Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

For seven weeks, pro-democracy protesters — many of whom were students — occupied the square. They called for freedom of the press and government accountability, among other goals, according to The New Yorker. The Chinese government's decision to forcefully remove protesters was bloody, resulting in the deaths of between 500 and 2,500 people.

See also: China Blocks Google to Silence Tiananmen Square Discussion

While tanks rolled in to Tiananmen Square, photojournalist Stuart Franklin documented history from his hotel balcony, according to his first-person account in The Guardian. Franklin's iconic photograph, "Tank Man," was reproduced around the world.

In the days following June 4, 1989, it was clear that Chinese citizens had not seen any images or footage from the crackdown, Franklin said, due to the country's extreme media censorship. One of his photographs at the time depicted citizens looking at a lamppost where a photo of someone who had been killed was posted. "Nobody really knew what had happened, so these lampposts became the Twitter of their day," Franklin said.

View photos of Tiananmen Square, below.