When future historians look back on Monday, April 21, 1997, they will note a major turning point in Hong Kong's history. An advance guard of the People's Liberation Army moved in.
Their arrival signalled the most dramatic single event thus far to symbolise the handover of the territory to China.
But Hong Kong people who missed the low-key spectacle or the flurry of news reports could be forgiven for wondering whether anything had happened.
A walk past the Prince of Wales Barracks today will leave them none the wiser that behind its walls is a crack unit of the very army that the British forces have endeavoured to keep out of Hong Kong for almost 50 years. The Union Flag still flies proudly. There is no flutter of a Chinese flag and the PLA's soldiers are rarely visible walking around the base.
After briefly welcoming the media in to record the handshake between the British commander Major-General Bryan Dutton and the advance party's leader Major-General Zhou Borong, and to report their short dull speeches, the gates were closed to outsiders.
The PLA have come to Hong Kong. And gone to ground.
'I think the behaviour of the PLA will be an important part of how we view the change of sovereignty,' said Peter Rodriguez, 39, a banker born in the territory who turned out to witness its arrival in Central.