Frontline: The Tank Man -- PBS - Tuesday, April 11, 2006 - 9:00 p.m. (EDT)

Anyone who is at least 25 years old and who questions the power that one individual can have should remember back to a June morning in 1989. There, in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, a column of tanks moved through as a show of force against thousands of demonstrators. Suddenly, a lone figure, a man in a white shirt stood before the tanks, blocking their way. They could have squashed him like a bug with no problem...but they didn't. They stopped, and the lead tank attempted to maneuver around the man. Always facing them, the man moved with the tank each time it tried to evade him. He forced the mighty power of this most populous nation on earth to confront him...to look in his face.

This "tank man's" stand has become the most enduring image of Tiananmen Square, and one of the most enduring for 20th century freedom. Now Frontline explores who this man was, what he did, what happened to him and what he meant for China in "The Tank Man." This documentary is an important look at modern-day schizophrenic China -- engaging in some free-market reforms while still quashing dissent.