The killings started with the beating of a cigarette vendor by a policeman in Taipei. Throughout the island the population rose up. It was carnage, especially for the intellectual elite of Taiwan. The total number of victims remains controversial, but at least 10,000 Formosans, from of a population of six million people, perished in less than three months. These tragic events were the prelude to 40 years of merciless repression, a period called the "White Terror".

 While the crimes of 1947 are engraved in the memories of those that suffered, and their relatives, their discussion was taboo for forty years in Taiwan. The result is a still limited bibliography to broach this massacre, and the period of martial law known as the White Terror that followed it. Despite being the second longest imposition of martial law in history, only scholars really know about this important part of Taiwanese history as it is poorly documented, both in writing and in visual media.