The Massacre of Tlatelolco, was a government massacre of student, civilian protesters and bystanders that took place in October 2, 1968 in the Plaza de la Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco in the Mexico City. The violence occurred ten days before the 1968 Summer Olympics celebrations in Mexico City. One of the ugliest and most tragic incidents in the modern history of Latin America, when hundreds of unarmed Mexicans, most of them student protesters, were gunned down by government police and army forces. For months preceding the incident, protesters, most of them students, had been taking to the streets to bring the attention of the world to the repressive government, led by President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz. Some of their demands were autonomy for universities, the firing of the police chief, and the release of political prisoners. Díaz Ordaz, in an effort to stop the protests, had ordered the occupation of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the country's largest university. Student protesters saw the upcoming 1968 Summer Olympics, to be held in Mexico City, as the perfect way to bring their issues to a worldwide audience.…show more content… Armored cars and tanks quickly surrounded the plaza, and the police and military troops began firing into the crowd of unarmed students. Thousands of demonstrators fled in panic as tanks bulldozed over Tlatelolco Plaza. Some of the protesters managed to get away, while others took refuge in homes and apartments surrounding the square. A door-to-door search yielded some of these protesters. Not all of the victims of the Tlatelolco Massacre were protesters: many were simply passing through, and in the wrong place at the wrong