Updated

Greeks are marking the anniversary of the crushing of a 1973 student uprising against the military junta that ruled the country from 1967-74, with protest marches planned to the U.S. Embassy in Athens.

Riot police will be deployed Thursday in the center of the capital to guard against potential violence, which has frequently broken out in previous years.

The march begins in the afternoon at the gates of the Polytechnic, where the country's military rulers had sent a tank crashing through the front gate to suppress the student uprising, and will head through the city center to the U.S. Embassy, protesting America's stance on the dictatorship at the time.