China's journey to the point where it put a man in space and hosted the Olympic Games has been bumpy. Over the years there have been explosions of public frustration, though none have toppled a government. Here are some of them: 1919 On May 4, students in Beijing protested about the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty was signed at the end of the first world war. Germany was defeated in the war, and the winning western powers gave its colony of Shandong province to Japan. The protests started out as an anti-imperialist movement but quickly turned political. 1956 Premier Zhou Enlai convinced Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman Mao Zedong that intellectuals should be persuaded to speak out about the country's problems, to promote development in the arts. By 1957, the Hundred Flowers Movement had millions of letters pouring into the premier's office, while Peking University students openly criticised the CCP on a 'Democracy Wall'. 1957 By July, Mao had called the movement off. More than half a million intellectuals, artists and students are thought to have been humiliated, imprisoned or jailed. 1976 On January 8, Premier Zhou died. The nation mourned. This gradually built, and in the days leading up to April 5 - Ching Ming, or grave-sweeping day - people converged on the Monument to the People's Heroes on Tiananmen Square to remember him. On April 4, the army drove them away, but tens of thousands returned the next day. They were driven away again. 1978 In December, in line with a new CCP policy of 'seeking truth from facts', a wall on Xidan Lu in Beijing became the 'Democracy Wall'. Intellectuals and artists put up posters criticising the party. Activist Wei Jingsheng famously argued for a 'fifth modernisation' - freedom. The wall was shut down 1979. Wei died in exile. 1989 The death of CCP general secretary Hu Yaobang prompted protests that grew into a mass movement.