Khmer Rouge take Phnom Penh

April 17, 1975

Pol Pot's black-clad peasant army rolled into the Cambodian capital and, within hours, began emptying the city at gunpoint. Phnom Penh, a city of two million, was deserted within three days. Money, cities, schools, and religion were all to be abolished. Over the next four years perhaps two million Cambodians, a fifth of the population, would die.