Monument to the People's Heroes

The Monument to the People's Heroes stands in the center of Tiananmen Square, north of the Memorial Hall of Chairman Mao. It is constructed from August 1952 to May 1958, was the first large scale memorial built in New China. The Monument to the People's Heroes is a square building, covering an area of 3,000 square meters. It is composed of three parts; the body, the Buddhist-style base, and the pedestal, reaching as tall as 37.94m. The body of the monument is made up of 413 pieces of granite 32 layers deep. The 17,000 pieces of marble and granite weigh over 10,000 metric tons. In the center of the north side of the monument, a single complete piece of stone, 14.7m long, 2.9m wide and 1m thick, is inscribed with large, glazed words by Mao Zedong which read: "Eternal Glory to the People's Heroes." The south side of the monument is composed of 7 pieces of stone with a draught of an epigraph by Mao Zedong and inscribed by Zhou Enlai. The east and west sides of the monument are carved with patterns of five-pointed stars, pine trees and flags.

On the pedestal of the tablet there are eight huge bas-relieves carved out of white marble covering the revolutionary episodes, which are depictions of Chinese struggle from the First Opium War in 1840 to the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. The relieves can be read in chronological order in a clockwise direction from the east:
1.Destruction of Opium at Humen (1839), in the run-up to the First Opium War
2.The Jintian Village Uprising in Taiping Revolution (1851)
3.Wuchang Uprising (1911 Revolution)
4.May 4th Movement (1919)
5.May 30 Movement (1925)
6.Nanchang Uprising (1927)
7.War of Resistance Against Japan (1931 and 1945)
8.Crossing the Yangtze River Campaign, or Successful Crossing of the Yangtze River (1949)