BOOK 1 in the RANDOM SERIES
Random Is The Collection Of Jagged Pieces Coming Together As One. - Latty
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On 3 June 1937: In a chateau near Tours, the Duke of Windsor – formerly Edward VIII – marries Wallis Simpson. His brother, George VI, forbids his other brothers from attending the nuptials.
On 4 June 1989: Hundreds die in Tiananmen Square. By the beginning of June 1989, Tiananmen Square, in the centre of Beijing, was packed with demonstrators. After weeks of mounting protests, with students and dissidents at the forefront, the Chinese communist government had declared martial law and sent some 250,000 troops to the capital – but still the crowds refused to disperse. On 2 June party leaders, including the country’s effective leader, Deng Xiaoping, agreed that it was time to crack down.
Tiananmen Square, they agreed, must be cleared, so that “the riot can be halted and order restored to the capital”. The following evening, 3 June, troops and tanks thundered into the centre of Beijing, as state television warned residents to stay in their homes. By about 10 o’clock, reports were emerging of bloodshed at major intersections on the roads into the city. Inside Tiananmen Square, some 70,000 people stood and waited. Then, just after midnight, the first armoured vehicle appeared from the west. Some students threw stones and bricks, while others tried to prevent them; it was vital, they said, that their protest remained non-violent.
What followed remains the single most controversial moment in China’s recent history. In the early hours of 4 June, the army cleared the square by force. Government officials initially claimed the action resulted in no deaths – later revised to about 200; other estimates suggest that as many as 1,000 people lost their lives. Either way, the result was the same: the protesters had been defeated. One image, taken the next day, captured the terrible drama: a photograph of a lone man, holding two shopping bags, standing in front of a column of tanks. Who he was, and what he was doing, remains uncertain. At the time, there were rumours that he was arrested and dragged before a firing squad. We may well never know.
On June 5th 1832: Angry Parisians man the barricades Paris, 1832. In the Tuileries garden, the young writer Victor Hugo was strolling by the river when he heard gunshots: trouble was brewing in the working-class district of Les Halles. Hugo went to investigate. For 15 minutes he hid behind a pillar and watched as the king’s soldiers fired on republican rebels. At last the battle moved away, giving Hugo the chance to make his escape. It was a moment that stayed with him for the rest of his life. Some 13 years later, he began work on a novel set in Paris during those tumultuous June days: Les Misérables.
