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mybukz · 2 years

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Excerpt: His WildFlower by L Grey S

When the world returned to the days of iron-fisted rules of monarchs and unelected federations, the falsified preaching of ‘united as one’ oppressively muted people’s free will and voices. Like frogs in hot water, there came a rise in rebellions. But showing no sign of surrendering, the power yielders held on until a tale of hope was birthed.

Whispering from ear to ear, a rumour of a modern-day messiah would bring an end to the power yielders. Brushing off its ridiculousness at first, the lit matchstick of tales ignited a bonfire of fear when they saw the hope it restored to people. The truth was unimportant, inner indignities became the roots to their hysteria.

Baseless accusations of countries hiding the said messiah triggered bloodshed in their manic search to stamp out the myth. More ants crawled in their pants when new hysterical claims began to emerge. It was prophesied: ‘The mind of the messiah is a key to triumph.’

From greedy nobles to the scums of societies, anyone with a pulse was searching for the person behind the rumour. People’s obsessions became the wildfire-like toxicity that contaminated their sanity, their innermost darkness of barbarism battered civilisation through venomous violence…

Slowly withering away to empty shells, the power yielders soon crumbled after endless wars. Perhaps it was not a myth after all; the rumour did end their reigns, but a new level of calamity was birthed.

One obsessive madman became the next successor of the old empire of the United Kingdom. Got wind of a name, blame was pinned. Executed for treason, the Crown marched an army to raid his home to seek the key to triumph.

Leading the troop was an ambitious and ruthless General who was already plotting a coup. When they arrived at a burning home, the General caught the shadow of the arsonist fleeing the scene. But instead of sending his troop to hunt the arsonist, the General charged into the burning home. He returned with scorched wounds and whatever he could rescue.

In the pile of burnt ashes, he found enlightenment. A secret more powerful than an Imperial Seal… he believed he was bestowed with the power of God. A keyholder of such power, he should no longer serve and others should serve him, shamelessly preaching that he was the next chosen one who rose from the ashes.

The Crown was an empty shell without its uniformed servicemen’s protection. The only thing that could prevent the General’s coup was anyone with a claim to the throne. He began hunting and slaughtering nobles, stealing and raiding the homes of wealthy folks. Lands he took were divided between his loyal subordinates who led militia and mercenary tribes which fought only for themselves. Gang turfs and black market trades too were soon replaced by the General’s own.

Adapting like chameleons, the poor quickly scuttled to the most powerful groups. The unruliness was undiscriminating, trampling everyone in its way.

Forging a plan for their survival, assembling the wealthiest was an alliance named The Symmetry. An agreement of equal sharing was sworn between Elder Hua and Lord Eldridge. Leading his Clansmen of the underworld, the ruthlessly cunning Elder Hua was the polar opposite to the noble-born Lord Eldridge, who relayed secret handshakes with his worldly peers of the Brotherhood.

Suspicious of each other, their collaboration was forged necessarily because of their shared infinite wealth of the planet. Such wealth allowed them to swiftly invade anywhere with their hired guns: the Crimsons. The Crimsons were merciless – they used their firepower to massacre those in their way. Eyeing an isolated land in the far North, a small population protected by the Fjords, it was taken hostage almost immediately. The natives were forced to raise white flags and were banished to the bottom tip of the inverted pyramid.

The Symmetry bestowed the invaded land with the name Aisin after the mighty Qing Imperial House of Aisin-Gioro. Keen enthusiasts of the Imperial family, the Hua Clan worshipped a rigid power hierarchy. Bloodline and family names played pivotal roles in their view of the world, one of few interests they shared passionately with the Eldridge Brotherhood. Aisin in old Manchuria bore the meaning of gold, and in contemporary language, it signified love for the new. But underneath was plain old untameable greed, plotting and scheming.

While the wealthiest in Aisin crushed heavily against The Gates, the dwelling place of the rich, the middle class were even more densely housed in The Districts. While the population of the wealthy outweighed the poor, thrown to the bottom of this pyramid were the ignored natives in The Quarters. The social rigidity was not a passion shared by all, and years later, The Gates formed a group of independents named Associates who wished to stay free from the feuds in The Symmetry. But in Aisin, refusing to choose sides was an equally risky game.

A promised land hunted by many, sheltered in a bubble away from the disorders, many began journeying to Aisin. In the early years, what welcomed them was the firepower of the Crimsons who drove travellers away like vermin. Unwilling to return to their homes, the Colony settled in nearby islands. As the Colony became overwhelmed with arrivals, the world’s plague of violence was unleashed on those islands too.

Such illness was not welcomed, especially by the natives living in The Quarters who were often killed for their identities. The Crimsons, the original security forces, made no effort to protect them. But a light of hope was shed when a technologically advanced homeland security was created.

With an army of machines and human henchmen, the Gatekeepers, Aisin Intelligence and Security Gatekeeping (AISG) was headed by an independently conscious A.I. Director named Kuro. With its borders secured with upgrades of robots and machines, any refugees who swam desperately to a dream of safety were often met with death before reaching land.

CHAPTER 1

HIS NEW BEGINNING

‘Nice to meet you, Mr Liu. Please have a seat.’

The woman smiled faintly, as she observed him looking around suspiciously before entering the room. Appearing slightly disorientated, he plunged into a seat across from her. With fingers over his eyes, he held his temples.

The man asked in a deep soulless voice, ‘You asked to see me?’

‘Yes, Mr Liu. It is common for new arrivals to feel isolated and scared, especially the ones who came close to death. So, I wanted to make sure you’re fine.’

What the fuck does she want? Whatever it is, I’m not telling her anything. Urgh… and her godawful perfume is making me sick.

Peeping through his fingers, the man saw a document with his photo attached to it. Leaning forward, he picked it up and skimmed through.

‘What’s this?’

‘Your newly assigned identity. You can change it if you’re not happy with it.’

Marcus Liu…

‘Why do I need one? I have a name of my own.’

‘The Director will explain everything to you when she sees you.’

Squinting his eyes, he scoffed and chucked the document back on her desk. Exhaling deeply, his shifty eyes scanned the room and landed on the crystal name plate on her desk.

Catherine. Good gracious, I need something to distract me from her scent.

A Newton’s cradle caught his eyes. He drew a ball and released it. Tick, tock, tick, tock… he concentrated on the hypnotic clanks, easing his agitation.

‘Mr Liu…’

Tapping a finger twitchily on Catherine’s desk, Marcus said, ‘Please just address me with the first name of whatever identity that you’ve assigned without me agreeing to it. Marcus, wasn’t it?’

‘Erm, sure… Marcus.’

Slouching back, he folded his arms. Above his sharp jawline, he wore dark choppy hair with a fringe hovering over his haunting long-tailed phoenix eyes which swept towards his temples. A visible slash scar cut over his left brow down to his cheek. Attached to the cold but pleasing face was a pair of broad shoulders draped with muscle. Chest embossed under a fitted t-shirt; he was sleeved in golden-toned skin.

To break the awkward silence, Catherine continued. ‘I am your assigned therapist. You can see me as a friend who is helping you with your transition.’

Unkeen around strangers, Marcus insolently dismissed her. ‘Just so you know, everyone I know dies. My advice to you is to stay away.’

Taken aback, Catherine became tongue-tied.

‘This is wasting my time. I’m leaving!’ Marcus stood and left the room. He was halted by someone at the door. Or was it… something?

Sniffing like a hound, he found it odd that ‘she’ had no scent. He welcomed the fresh air of the hallway after getting trapped in a ‘gas chamber’ with Catherine.

Appearing friendly, the human lookalike introduced herself in a synthetic voice like a lift operator. ‘Hi, I’m Alice from welfare and hospitality. Please come with me.’

Dipping his head, Marcus stroked his chin while sussing Alice suspiciously.

Oh? A robot… not something you see every day.

Having risen from a coma barely hours ago, Marcus was still muddled. His normally hypersensitive awareness was dampened by drowsiness. Heavy and weak on his limbs, Marcus looked around for an escape. But by the time he realised there was no way out, he was already standing in a cold-as-ice operating theatre.

Alice was stick-thin, but like an ant she could carry fifty times her weight. She effortlessly dragged Marcus onto the surgical table and strapped him in.

‘HEY, WATCH IT!’ Marcus warned.

Ignoring him, Alice spoke in a gentle voice. ‘I have to warn you that this is going to hurt, but it’ll be over in the blink of an eye.’

He struggled, terrified, trying to free himself as Alice arched down to widen his left eyelid, holding a dubious-looking solution in her hands. A couple of drops was all it took to agonisingly burn his retina, as millions of foreign biofibres melded together. But Alice was right, it was over in the blink of an eye, literally.

He blinked again to adjust his sight, wondering what had been done to him. When a blurry augmented hologram data box appeared next to Alice, he squinted to try and focus on it. The hologram box disappeared when he shut his left lid and returned when he opened it again.

Intrigued, Marcus asked, ‘Alice, what am I seeing?’

Profile data. Now you can access the Director’s cloud and she has access to you through your lens.’

Handing him a slick rectangular black glass device the size of his palm, Alice continued, ‘This is our communication device: Solar. Powered by the sun, it requires minimum sun exposure for infinite battery life.’

‘Solar users can direct their device to any human or non-human user and quickly access their public profile that has been uploaded to the Director’s cloud. Bear in mind, public profiles do not represent people’s true identities. Anyone has the freedom to be whoever or whatever they wish, and that’s where your cornea lens comes in. As a Gatekeeper, you have full access to their actual information with DNA. I’ll leave the Director to explain the details to you.’

‘So anyone can be a catfish?’

Pausing uncomprehendingly, Alice answered, ‘Err… I’m afraid we only have humans, non-bio humanoids, and other robotic lives. No aquatic lifeforms.’

Holding his head in his hands, Marcus sighed, ‘Ugh… never mind. Who the fuck is this Director that has all the answers? I want to see her!’

‘Sure. This way please.’

Taking an elevator to the basement, Marcus was faced with a gigantic sphere in the middle of an echoing basement. Unprepared for the virtual reality experience, he was greeted by an augmented figure which sprung up on his left cornea.

Of East Asian descent, the slim female figure looked like an anime character. She wore a perfectly symmetrical fringe above her perfectly shaped eyebrows, her hair length was down to her bosom, like that of an ancient Egyptian queen. Wearing a black knee-length dress under a structured black blazer, she bore a pair of scanning eyes that could see into anyone’s soul.

‘Greetings Marcus. I am Kuro, the Director of AISG. You are here earlier than expected. I’m pleased to see you on your feet again. You barely had a pulse when my patrolling team found you washed up on the coast of Aisin.’

I’m in Aisin? The explosion blasted me so far away from the oil rig?

Kuro continued, ‘You have been in a coma for three months. Do you remember what happened?’

Suspicious, Marcus did not respond. Sussing him, Kuro unapologetically infiltrated Marcus’s current thoughts through his latest upgrade.

‘You are lucky that I knew of your bident tattoo. If you were just a drifter from the Colony, we would be having a rather different conversation. Most probably no conversation.’

Holding onto the left side of his chest, Marcus gasped silently. She knows of my tattoo and the Hades Guild? What does she want from me?

‘It is only natural you’re suspicious of your new environment. If you must know, your two-pronged fork tattoo made quite a name for itself across the pond. Your little Guild was not exactly… the kindest.’

Triggered by the comment, Marcus became defensive. ‘Hmph! What do you know? Out there, you either kill or be killed! A big machine like you would have been shredded into pieces and selling your parts wouldn’t even feed a family of two.’

‘I do not doubt that. Do not worry, I am not one of your Hades debt collectors. You can see me as a vessel, like Noah’s ark. I’m only interested in collecting talents. You’ve taken many lives. Perhaps you could protect for a change.’

‘‘If you knew Hades then you’ll know I wasn’t exactly a law-abiding citizen. I’m not interested in your proposal!’ Marcus said dismissively.

‘It’s just a matter of perspective. Surely the many lives you have taken were largely to protect the people of your Guild? So, is what I am proposing any different from what you were used to?’

‘…’ Marcus went stiff-tongued.

After a pause, he questioned, ‘You have robots and machines, why do you need me? You were operating perfectly fine prior to my existence.’

‘There have been quite a number of infiltrations from the Colony since your arrival. They were rather… sophisticated, which was rather unusual. It was like they had a magic mirror that saw through my methods, and it was quite an effort to stop them. They seemed to know how to avoid my machines and they injured quite a number of my Gatekeepers. The Quarters are under my watch and I am unhappy that the natives are getting killed and identities are being stolen. I do not warrant such monstrosity on my land. I am sure taking out a few impostors will not be that difficult for you?’

‘Hah… are you taking the piss? If you are an intelligent machine and you are flawed, how can I, a normal human, make things any better?’

‘Everyone in Aisin serves a purpose, including you. You just need to walk the path to see the light.’

What the fuck is she on about?

‘If you’re worried about your past, please don’t. You have been given a new identity and a new life. Your past was buried with your old identity when you stepped into Aisin. To show my sincerity, I promise you that no one will know about your past. All I want in return is your loyalty.’

‘And if I refuse?’

Whipping her symmetrical hair back, Kuro folded her arms. The harmless-looking figure smiled and said, ‘Then you will not see another light.’

‘Why bother rescuing me if you are going to kill me? You’re wasting both of our time. Be done with it!’

‘Because your body does not lie. It wants to live. Judging from your vitals and the chemicals in your body, I suggest you come to terms with the guilt you feel. The fate of Hades was not your fault. Aisin could be your new start if you choose it.’

The hair at the back of Marcus’s neck stood up as the words settled in his ears. Soul-crushingly, he knew that his only family had been obliterated in an oil rig explosion. He had lost everyone. For a dead man walking, death sounded like a good trade-off. But instinctively, Marcus chose otherwise.

Taking his silence as acceptance, Kuro continued, ‘You were rather rude to Catherine earlier.’

‘I’m not good with strangers. Especially one who smells like she fell into a pool of artificial flowers. If you want me to work for you then deal with it!’

Just as the words left his lips, he heard faint footsteps coming their way. An eager man in nerdy glasses, which accentuated his blue eyes, walked in. Of Norse descent, with ginger hair, he wore a bright smile that sickened Marcus.

Offering a handshake, the man introduced himself. ‘Hi, I’m Stig. It’s a pleasure to be partnered with you!’

After accessing the man’s detailed profile through his left cornea, Marcus looked away from his apparent partner. Stig withdrew his hand awkwardly.

‘Stig, please kindly show your partner to his accommodation. You’re dismissed.’ Kuro sent the pair away.

With his arms around Marcus’s shoulders, Stig began steering him out of the room. Trying his best to contain his excitement, Stig blurted out in one breath.

‘You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this moment! Under AISG’s protocol, no one is allowed to be on the field without a partner. You know, I’ve dreamed of becoming a Gatekeeper since… I don’t even remember… If it wasn’t for the Director, I’d be unemployed and stuck at the bottom begging for scraps at The Quarters! But now, my family has moved to The Districts. You must come visit one day.’

‘… ’

Pausing to catch a breath, Stig continued.

‘The Symmetry and The Crimsons came uninvited to our land and annihilated the majority of us. Those who bent the knees – like my parents – were miserably shoved to the undesirable part of the country, and they weren’t allowed anywhere beyond the wasteland. Thanks to the split of the Associates, The Symmetry were so afraid that they would ally with us to overthrow them that The Crimsons eased the rules. But it was just so they could keep a close eye on us.’

‘Oh! There is a craftsmen’s street, dubbed the Saville Row of Aisin, which was Lady Blackwood’s effort in helping Quarterers with employment. My parents are tailors on the street. It’s the only human-made retail street of Aisin. Labourers are now largely replaced by machines and robots.’

Charged with overwhelmingly positive endorphins, Stig continued spewing everything he could think of like a walking encyclopaedia, unaware that Marcus was slowly distancing himself.

‘Did you know that in the last twenty-something years, the temperature of the planet has seen drastic change. We can experience extreme winters and summers in a matter of days. Everyone is still trying to figure out what happened.’

Rolling his eyes and shutting out Stig’s blabbering, Marcus examined the black glass Solar device from earlier.

Noticing Marcus’s curiosity, Stig advised, ‘If the data around you gets overwhelming, you can snooze the lens and use Solar instead. I prefer to put it to sleep. I feel it takes out the fun in getting to know someone on a deeper level.’

Solar was a master key to its user’s life. Accessing everything under the sun, Solar was an advanced extension of the brain, with limitless possibilities and convenience. People who used it would soon find it as indispensable as one of their own limbs.

Testing the device, Marcus scanned the cell door of his accommodation. With access only granted to the cloud profile connected to the residence, the door opened once he was verified. Unless invited by the authorised user, Stig would be denied entry.

‘Did you know…’

Before Stig could finish his sentence, a door shut in his face.

‘… you’re an asshole!’

Breathing a sigh of relief, Marcus finally found peace. Scanning the room (far from fancy) the cube with four walls had a bed, a desk with a chair, a wardrobe, and a half mirror next to an en-suite shower. But Marcus did find one luxury item: a minibar!

He rummaged through the rucksack that was left by Alice on the bed, trying to salvage some traces of his past. When he found what he was looking for, he was immediately comforted.

A trio of long-distance microchipped arrowhead blades. Gifted by a monster from his past, his customised weapons were synced to a thumb ring powered by rapidly metabolising his body energy. Throwing them like ninja stars, he could also reel the arrowheads back to him like fish caught on a line.

With senses heightened, Marcus had the ability to scan and sense his surroundings meticulously. His ability gave him the precision of a natural blade-thrower. As accurate as a sniper, he could pierce throats and skulls from miles away.

Looking at himself in a half mirror, he tightened his fist and the arrowhead punctured his palm. Staring at the bident tattoo on the left of his chest, he trembled and a tear rolled down from his eye. Savagely stabbing the arrowhead onto it, he carved and mutilated the ink of his past.

Covered in blood, he squeezed his built body under the tight shower, clumsily hitting the on button. Standing naked under running water, he lifted his chin, parted his lips and tasted the chlorine water. The ravishing man ran his thick and rough fingers through his drenched hair.

Blood drained like scarlet before waterfall from his mutilated wound. Unfazed by the stinging pain, he smothered soap over his sculpted torso, crimson bubbles dribbling down his rock-hard chest to those iron abdominals. Attached to his body were a pair of athletic legs and a perky derriere. Wrapped with unsightly scars, each told stories like cave paintings. He brushed his callused fingers over them.

Out of the shower, he raided the minibar. Cracking open a few miniature vodka bottles, he splashed them over his mutilated wound and roughly dressed it before swallowing a handful of painkillers, complimentary of hospitality Alice. Breaths slowing down, his lids turned heavier.

* * *

He peeled open his swollen lids. Painfully tied to a chair with barbed wire, he noticed he was restrained by his own signature Shibari knots. He chuckled to himself; only one madman would mock him with such atrocity.

He heard footsteps approaching. Pricked by thousands of pins and needles, his body went into shock when ice-cold water was splashed onto him.

Laughing sinisterly in a familiar coarse voice, the man beside him smacked Marcus’s cheeks and whispered, ‘Time to wake up, my sleeping beauty.’

His throat tightened: Marcus was voiceless. A sudden punch to his jaw sent a back tooth catapulting out of his mouth. Falling to the ground, Marcus spat out metallic tasting blood between his teeth.

Holding Marcus’s arrow-tipped blades to his throat, the man sneered, ‘How could you, Sheng?! You traitor! I’m going to take away everything you cared about!’

Hah… that’s me…

I am Sheng… I was Sheng…

Faint knocks from a distance distracted the man.

* * *

…they were getting louder. Slowly lifting his lids, Marcus was unsure if he was still dreaming. Stumbling to the door, he was greeted by Alice with breakfast.

Taking one look at the tray of mush, Marcus asked, ‘What’s this?’

‘The Director told me to bring this. High-protein mashed beans with a side of kale salad and toast.’

‘Ugh…’ Repulsed by the unappetising meal, Marcus took a slice of toast then chucked the tray on the desk and pulled a long hoodie over himself to venture outdoors.

Hospitality my arse!

Guided by his lens, Marcus left the heavily guarded building with his head down and scouted around Downtown. He felt as though he had walked into a science fiction movie.

The bustling Downtown was buzzing with flying drones and patrolling robots. Autonomous vehicles were driving themselves seamlessly and accordingly. Transportation capsules were travelling at super speed in transparent tubes which was around Downtown, surrounded by cloud-height skyscrapers.

Still trying to adjust to his new upgrade, Marcus’s cornea lens was being bombarded with relentless data, holograms and augmentations along with all the data from the Solar users. Dazed from experiencing the overwhelmingness that Stig had warned about, he kept bumping into people who were engrossed in their Solar devices. A migraine began to pound against his skull so he turned the lens off.

He wandered into a park. Sitting on a park bench, burying his head against his knees, he rocked desperately to try and force the pain away. A concussion had his brain mixed up, and he gasped when he suddenly flashed back to a pair of bloodstained hands.

I’m a coward. Everyone is dead and I’m still breathing. I failed to rescue them.

Guilt… Marcus was tormenting himself with it. He was nothing but a lone wolf prowling in a foreign land, purposeless and meaningless.

He took a deep breath... and ended up choking himself with a pungent stench of drunkenness. Passed out beside him (at ten in the morning) was a man hugging an empty bottle of champagne at ten in the morning. With thick, scruffy hair over his face, Marcus could not get a good look at the intoxicated person. Missing a shoe, shirt unbuttoned, half undone tie – the man clearly had had a bit too much fun.

The drunk propelled his guts and Marcus sprang away nimbly like a ninja. Holding his breath from the awful stench on his hypersensitive nostrils, Marcus caught the drunk before he rolled into his own sick. Laying the drunk down, he draped his hoodie over the man.

And left.

Synopsis:

What is destiny? Do we have the power to change the course of our lives, or are we forever bound by fates formulated by the algorithm of being?

And coincidences – are they merely fluke occurrences or are they the results of a planned chain reaction?

That is the story of a man who has run away from his past, and another who is running from himself. Pursued by their own demons, the unlikely pair collide fiercely with judgements and misunderstandings. From enemies to lovers, the pair journey on a path to discover truths that they have been denied. But are they ready to face them?

Who is the hero and who is the villain in their story?

And what is their destiny…?

‘There’s ugliness in beauty, but there’s also beauty in ugliness’

‘We may be monsters, but we are each other’s monsters’

Genre: LGBT fiction, Slow-burn romance, sci-fi fantasy

Format : eBook, 365 pages, USD4.28

Released : 28/12/2021

Download from:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/His-WildFlower-L-Grey-S-ebook/dp/B09N1P92VS/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09N1P92VS?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420

About S Grey L:

Eye for Beauty,

A Boys Love devotee,

A storyteller of fictional fantasies.

Root of the East,

With a voice of the West,

Blending them makes writing Best.

Little by little,

Grey celebrates the middle,

Soul behind my writing is for you to unriddle.

#fiction #sci-fi #lgbtq #fantasy

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brookstonalmanac · 7 years

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Events 2.18

1229 – The Sixth Crusade: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor signs a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy. 1268 – The Livonian Order is defeated by Dovmont of Pskov in the Battle of Rakvere. 1332 – Amda Seyon I, Emperor of Ethiopia begins his campaigns in the southern Muslim provinces. 1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is executed in private at the Tower of London. 1637 – Eighty Years' War: Off the coast of Cornwall, England, a Spanish fleet intercepts an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by six warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them. 1745 – The city of Surakarta, Central Java is founded on the banks of Bengawan Solo River, and becomes the capital of the Sunanate of Surakarta Hadiningrat. 1766 – A mutiny by captive Malagasy begins at sea on the slave ship Meermin, leading to the ship's destruction on Cape Agulhas in present-day South Africa and the recapture of the instigators. 1781 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Captain Thomas Shirley opens his expedition against Dutch colonial outposts on the Gold Coast of Africa (present-day Ghana). 1791 – Congress passes a law admitting the state of Vermont to the Union, effective 4 March 1791, after that state had existed for 14 years as a de facto independent largely unrecognized state. 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: Sir Ralph Abercromby and a fleet of 18 British warships invade Trinidad. 1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Montereau. 1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America. 1861 – With Italian unification almost complete, Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumes the title of King of Italy. 1865 – American Civil War: Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia. 1873 – Bulgarian revolutionary leader Vasil Levski is executed by hanging in Sofia by the Ottoman authorities. 1878 – John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jesse Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico. 1885 – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is published in the United States. 1900 – Second Boer War: Imperial forces suffer their worst single-day loss of life on Bloody Sunday, the first day of the Battle of Paardeberg. 1906 – Édouard de Laveleye forms the Belgian Olympic Committee in Brussels. 1911 – The first official flight with airmail takes place from Allahabad, United Provinces, British India (now India), when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivers 6,500 letters to Naini, about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) away. 1930 – While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto. 1930 – Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft. 1932 – The Empire of Japan declares a puppet state of Manzhouguo (the obsolete Chinese name for Manchuria) independent from the Republic of China and installed former Chinese Emperor Aisin Gioro Puyi as Chief Executive of the State. 1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: During the Nanking Massacre the Nanking Safety Zone International Committee is renamed "Nanking International Rescue Committee" and the safety zone in place for refugees falls apart. 1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army begins the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore. 1943 – World War II: The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement. 1943 – World War II: Joseph Goebbels delivers his Sportpalast speech. 1946 – Sailors of the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in Bombay harbour, from where the action spreads throughout the Provinces of British India, involving 78 ships, twenty shore establishments and 20,000 sailors 1947 – First Indochina War: The French gain complete control of Hanoi after forcing the Viet Minh to withdraw to mountains. 1954 – The first Church of Scientology is established in Los Angeles. 1955 – Operation Teapot: Teapot test shot "Wasp" is successfully detonated at the Nevada Test Site with a yield of 1.2 kilotons. Wasp is the first of fourteen shots in the Teapot series. 1957 – Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is executed by the British colonial government. 1957 – Walter James Bolton becomes the last person legally executed in New Zealand. 1965 – The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom. 1970 – The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. 1972 – The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, (6 Cal.3d 628) invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment. 1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden "flight" on top of a Boeing 747. 1983 – Thirteen people die and one is seriously injured in the Wah Mee massacre in Seattle. It is said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in U.S. history. 1991 – The IRA explodes bombs in the early morning at Paddington station and Victoria station in London. 2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. 2001 – Seven-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt dies in an accident during the Daytona 500. 2001 – Sampit conflict: Inter-ethnic violence between Dayaks and Madurese breaks out in Sampit, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, ultimately resulting in more than 500 deaths and 100,000 Madurese displaced from their homes. 2003 – Nearly 200 people die in the Daegu subway fire in South Korea. 2004 – Up to 295 people, including nearly 200 rescue workers, die near Nishapur in Iran when a runaway freight train carrying sulfur, petrol and fertilizer catches fire and explodes. 2007 – Terrorist bombs explode on the Samjhauta Express in Panipat, Haryana, India, killing 68 people. 2013 – Armed robbers steal a haul of diamonds worth $50 million during a raid at Brussels Airport in Belgium. 2014 – At least 76 people are killed and hundreds are injured in clashes between riot police and demonstrators in Kiev, Ukraine.

#Events

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