Taksim Square

This guide to Taksim Square in Istanbul begins at the Republic Monument, unveiled in 1928 as one of the first public monuments allowed after centuries of Ottoman law forbidding them. It moves to May Day 1977, when half a million workers, students and union members packed the square around it, and to the moment shots rang out from a nearby rooftop. It also traces the name Taksim itself, back to an Ottoman water reservoir that once stood on this spot.