In June 1989 Deng ordered troops to fire on thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators who had gathered in BeijingвЂ™s Tiananmen Square.

This increase in economic and personal freedoms did not carry over to the political realm, however. For instance, he disbanded agricultural cooperatives and encouraged foreign investment. Once in power, Deng normalized relations with the United States, negotiated the return of Hong Kong from the British and introduced a number of free-market reforms.

But a second political comeback proved more long lasting when he outmaneuvered MaoвЂ™s chosen successor to become ChinaвЂ™s вЂњparamountвЂќ leader in 1978. His first political comeback ended just before MaoвЂ™s death, when he was again stripped of his posts. Mao remained leader until his death in September 1976.Дeng Xiaoping joined MaoвЂ™s inner circle in the 1950s, only to be banished during the Cultural Revolution and forced to work in a tractor repair station. Another 1.5 million or so died during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), in which paramilitaries called Red Guards roamed the country hunting down intellectuals and other perceived enemies of the state. A colossal failure, it resulted in a famine that killed up to 45 million people from 1958 to 1962. He then promulgated the Great Leap Forward, in which villagers were forced into communes in an attempt to increase agricultural and industrial output. Right away, Mao purged hundreds of thousands of counterrevolutionaries, redistributed land to peasants, laid claim to Tibet and committed troops to battle the United States in Korea. Finally, in 1949, the Nationalists withdrew to Taiwan and Mao proclaimed the PeopleвЂ™s Republic of China. The two sides briefly cooperated in the late 1930s to resist invading Japanese forces, but they were at each otherвЂ™s throats again after World War II. He fought a guerrilla campaign from the countryside following the outbreak of civil war between the Communists and Nationalists in 1927, gaining fame-and leadership over the party-for leading an orderly retreat of roughly 6,000 miles. Sun Yat-sen (1912)ДЄ founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong broke with Marxist-Leninist thought by building up a вЂњRed ArmyвЂќ of peasants rather than relying on industrial workers. The Mongol empire started crumbling soon afterward, and the Yuan Dynasty was overthrown in 1368. Despite suffering from depression and gout, not to mention morbid obesity, Kublai held a firm grip on power until his death in 1294. Moreover, he posthumously gave his ancestors Chinese names and built a Chinese-style imperial capital in what is now Beijing. Kublai, who founded the Yuan Dynasty, deemed the Chinese legally inferior and recruited outsiders such as Venetian merchant Marco Polo to administer the realm.Д«ut Kublai also tried hard to win the support of the populace, repairing the damage of war, loosening his predecessorвЂ™s draconian penal code, promoting the arts and expanding the efficient Mongolian postal system into China. His grandson Kublai Khan completed the conquest in 1279, bringing all of China under foreign rule for the first time. Mongol leader Genghis Khan began launching raids into present-day China almost immediately after uniting the nomadic tribes of the Mongolian plateau in 1206.

Rulers of china