1989

The world witnesses the fall of the Berlin Wall as the Cold War slowly comes to an end. The Chinese government opens fire on demonstrating students in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

Renee Montagne leaves as host of ATC to become a correspondent with NPR's National Desk. Noah Adams and Linda Wertheimer join Robert Siegel as co-hosts.

On June 4 on ATC, NPR's Lynn Neary spoke with Kate Adie, a BBC journalist who was in Tiananmen Square when the shooting started.

Adie: "There were several thousand people running around, jeering, standing and yelling at the troops, screaming abuse at them, shouting at them. There were so many people around, to a certain extent you felt they surely can't fire into the middle of the people. Without warning, there was an enormous and lengthy volley of shots. It seemed to go on and on...

"I was about a hundred yards from the frontline, the frontline of students. And I was running with everyone else, and I saw people going down in the road, shot, and I felt something graze my elbow, and a man two feet in front of me threw his arms in the air and dropped dead..."

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