On this day in history, October 25, 1983, US President Ronald Reagan, citing the threat posed to the US citizens on the island, ordered over 2000 troops to invade the island of Grenada. The US was assisted by a coalition of right leaning Caribbean governments.

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Code-named Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion was triggered by internal strife within the government resulting in the house arrest & six days before the invasion, the execution of the island’s Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, the nation’s pro- Marxist leader.

Maurice Bishop

Maurice Bishop seized power in March of 1979 at the end of Grenadian Revolution replacing Sir Eric Gairy as PM. Bishop would then developed relations with Cuba. On October 19 of 1983, Bishop was killed by a firing squad. Up to this day, the remains of his body is unknown

Reports from the Washington Post indicated that since 1981 the CIA had engaged in efforts to destabilize the Grenadan government politically & economically. In August 1981, U.S. armed forces staged a mock invasion of Grenada on the island of Vieques off the coast of Puerto Rico.

Still during the actual invasion of 1983, US forces had to rely on minimal intelligence about the situation. (The maps used by them were, old tourist maps of the island.) Reagan ordered in more troops & by the time the fighting was done, nearly 6,000 U.S. troops were in Grenada.

Nearly 20 of these troops were killed & over a hundred wounded; over 60 Grenadan troops and Cuban milita on the islands to aid in the expansion of the island m’s airport were killed. The government collapsed & was replaced by one acceptable to the United States .

Upon taking over the island, most foreign doctors, teachers, and other civilians were summarily arrested and expelled by U.S. officials. The island's only radio station was taken over by the U.S. Navy. The press was censored, & a writ of habeus corpus was abolished on the island

World reaction to the invasion was overwhelmingly negative. A United Nations Security Council vote to condemn the invasion was vetoed by the United States, which cast the sole negative vote. The General Assembly also voted against the invasion by a wide margin.

Countries like Jamaica would find themselves in hot water with international powers as well because they aided in the invasion of Grenada. Under the orders of PM Edward Seaga, the Jamaica Defence Force, the JDF, was deployed on Grenada to aid the US in the invasion.

On its anniversary, we remember the lives forever change from the series of events that took place on the island of Grenada.