in grenada in the early 1970s the people were under hardship and oppression under the government of their first prime minister eric gary who led the grenade united labor party and his mongoose gang which were military officials in the protective services who were brutalizing opposition members of the public on his behalf november 18 1973 was called bloody sunday and january 21st 1974 was called bloody monday based on aggressive acts by the state against the people and so a movement rose up within the community led by maurice bishop and on march the 13th 1979 in a bloodless coup maurice bishop took over the government when prime minister eric gary was out to the country they took over all of the police stations the government offices and he went to radio free grenada radio station and announced that a revolutionary government that is anti-imperialist and socialist in nature marxist leninist has now been installed and that the people have the opportunity to cooperate with the masses his party was called the new jewel movement a new jewel stood for new joint endeavor for welfare education and liberation national democratic but anti-imperialist now when maurice bishop became prime minister even though they were a communist type but not communist socialist type government there were no general elections no other political parties but he bought his government ministers and town hall meetings to answer to the people on a weekly basis in the public and maurice bishop would ask the public to raise any concerns or problems that they have with his government ministers and his government ministers had to respond face to face with those who were concerned about their leadership and maurice bishop would make changes in government based on what the people wanted it was never a kind of political regime that was controlled by major finances and business corporations and millionaires dictating an agenda for them it was a people's revolutionary government to the people themselves refer to the government as the revolution and when the grenada revolution came and maurice bishop became the prime minister unemployment went up crime rates went right down places that had no water and no electricity and bad roads had all of those problems fixed and it was as if the entire country was like one big family where there are reports and stories of members of the communities leaving their homes unlocked it's like a lock on a door wasn't even necessary people pulling together dropping each other to work looking after each other's children growing food and trading it literally no crime at all and grenada still up to this day has the lowest crime rates in the english-speaking caribbean and they were a model society but of course with the cubans coming over to help build the airport america raised red flags and befriended prime minister eugenia charles of dominica prime minister tom adams and barbados and prime minister edward ciaga of jamaica and then the cia began infiltrating grenada to bring about enmity and discord between members of the grenada revolution government and so eventually a rift broke out between maurice bishop and his chief lieutenant who was bernard cord and then eventually with differences in ideological positions maurice bishop was eventually placed under house arrest which was sanctioned by bernard cord there was interference there was hysteria there was a lot of infiltration and when maurice bishop was placed under house arrest he was freed by members of the public he went up to fort rupert which was the command center for the military and one of the military leaders hudson austin took control of the situation lined up eight government ministers and it turned into a case where they were executed in cold blood in front of the masses who had came out and maurice bishop on that day october the 19th 1983 was executed and then the hudson austin and bernard court government took over just for six days and then the americans came in and invaded the u.s invasion of grenada which took place on october 25th 1983 was their first major military overseas operation since the vietnam war against grenada who barely had 100 000 people in population and the official statistics of the grenada invasion where america bought in 7 000 troops along with 300 troops from the eastern caribbean the invading forces encountered about 1 500 grenadian soldiers and about 800 cubans most of whom were military engineers the u.s forces suffered 19 fatalities and 116 injuries grenada suffered 45 military and at least 24 civilian deaths along with 358 soldiers wounded and cuba had 25 killed in action with 59 wounded and 638 cubans taken as prisoners by the americans cuba was a central point of the grenada revolution and america were motivated by keeping communism out of the region but the united nations general assembly on november the 2nd 1983 voted 108 against five in condemning the united states action in violation of international law in their invasion of grenade and subsequently the united states defense intelligence agency in washington dc received over five tons of documents not five folders or five boxes of information five tons that must tell you something there you have the history of the grenada revolution in just about seven minutes