The Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was held in Seattle from November 30 to December 3, 1999. Trade ministers and other officials from the WTO's 135 member nations met in an unsuccessful attempt to plan negotiations to further deregulate free trade. Tens of thousands of activists for many causes gathered to protest what they saw as the WTO's favoring of corporate interests over social and environmental concerns.

Here, an anti-WTO demonstrator is pulled to the ground after climbing onto a Seattle police armored personnel carrier as police cleared demonstrators from the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Union Street in order to provide WTO delegates access from the Seattle Sheraton to the Washington State Convention Center.

Caption information sources: "WTO Meeting and Protests in Seattle (1999) - Part 1," by Kit Oldham, HistoryLink.org Essay 9183; and "WTO Meeting and Protests in Seattle (1999) - Part 2," by Kit Oldham, HistoryLink.org Essay 9213.
Caption information source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "20 years later: Looking back at the Battle in Seattle, the WTO riots" by Zosha Millman, November 30, 2019, retrieved at https://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattle-history/article/WTO-Riots-Battle-Seattle-1999-anniversary-13431709.php#photo-797564