"Death on the Rock" was a 1988 British television documentary produced by Thames Television as part of the current affairs series This Week on ITV. It examined the shooting deaths of three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members by the British Special Air Service in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988. The series' editor, Roger Bolton, had dispatched journalists to Gibraltar and Spain to interview witnesses to the shootings and Spanish police officers who had surveilled the IRA team. The documentary presented evidence that the team were unarmed, and shot without warning or while attempting to surrender. The British government denounced the programme, and Geoffrey Howe, the foreign secretary, attemped to get the broadcast postponed by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. An independent inquiry, the Windlesham–Rampton report, found that the documentary was made in "good faith and without ulterior motives". It was praised within the television industry and won that year's BAFTA Award for Best Documentary.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_on_the_Rock
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1665:
The first joint Secretary of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg, published the first issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the world's longest-running scientific journal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Transactions_of_the_Royal_Society
1836:
Texas Revolution: Mexican forces captured the Alamo in San Antonio from the Texans after a 13-day siege. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Alamo
1869:
Dmitri Mendeleev presented the first periodic table of elements to the Russian Chemical Society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Mendeleev
1902:
Real Madrid, one of the world's richest football clubs, was founded as Madrid Football Club. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Madrid_C.F.
1967:
Joseph Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defected to the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Alliluyeva
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
preprandial: Of, relating to or occurring during the time before dinner. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/preprandial
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
If you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say that there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants flying in the sky, people will probably believe you. --Gabriel García Márquez https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquez