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The first mass rally of the Cultural Revolution
Tiananmen rostrum · Beijing, China · 1966-08-18
Mao reviewed a million Red Guards in the square, opening a decade of purges, closed universities and destroyed cultural property.
The record
| Date | 1966-08-18 |
|---|---|
| Place | Tiananmen rostrum, Beijing, China |
| Coordinates | 39.9075, 116.391 (landmark-level precision) |
| Scope | World-historic |
| Sources | Wikipedia |
| Added | 2026-08-14 · source: editors |
Coordinates are given at landmark level. A landmark-level coordinate points at the structure; a city-level one points at the settlement, not at a parcel.
Finding photographs
Every one of these is a search, not a guess: the event is documented, so the pictures exist somewhere. Start here.
- Wikimedia Commons — freely licensed images, with the licence stated on every file. This is the only source we republish from.
- The reference article — its own illustrations, and its citations to archives.
- Image search filtered to reusable licences — useful for tracing which institution holds a picture.
- National and municipal archives of China, and the picture desks of newspapers published there at the time.
Check the licence before you reuse anything. A photograph being online, or being old, does not make it free; in most countries a 1960s press photograph is still in copyright.
Footage
Newsreel and archive film of events like this often survives. Search YouTube for this event If you find good footage, send us the link and we will attach it to this page.
Time layers at this place
One place, several moments in time. This location has 12 recorded time layers between 1949 and 2025 — slide through them:
- 1949 — The People's Republic is proclaimed
- 1952 — Monument to the People's Heroes
- 1966 — The first mass rally of the Cultural Revolution this page
- 1972 — Nixon in China
- 1976 — Mao Zedong dies
- 1989 — Tiananmen Square, spring 1989
- 1989 — 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre
- 2004 — 2004 AFC Asian Cup
- 2008 — 2008 Summer Paralympics
- 2012 — 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party
- 2021 — 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party
- 2025 — 2025 China Victory Day Parade
Seeded by the editors. This entry was compiled by us from public reference works and is labelled as such, not presented as a reader’s contribution. Sources are listed on the entry. If you know more, or we have it wrong, tell us — corrections are published.
You can add to this page
This entry is a skeleton on purpose. If you were there, if your family was, or if you simply know the place: photographs (yours or ones you have the right to share), comments and corrections to the record above, and observations — what the place was like before, after, what the books get wrong. Everything is read by a person before publication and credited the way you ask.
What readers have added
Nothing yet — this place is waiting for its first memory. The form below takes a date, a story, photographs and links.
Do you know something about Tiananmen rostrum, Beijing?
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Nearby in Asia
- 2025 China Victory Day Parade (2025)Beijing
- 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (2021)Beijing
- Nixon in China (1972)Beijing
- 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre (1989)Beijing
- Monument to the People's Heroes (1952)
- 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (2012)Beijing