The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, commonly known in mainland China as the June Fourth Incident (六四事件), were student-led demonstrations in Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China, in 1989. More broadly, it refers to the popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests during that period, sometimes called the '89 Democracy Movement (八九民运). The protests were forcibly suppressed after the government declared martial law. In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with automatic rifles and tanks killed at least several hundred demonstrators trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated variously from 180 to 10,454.