Secret History

Brighton Bomb (11x1)

Air date: May 15, 2003

On 12th October 1984, the IRA carried out the most audacious terrorist attack in its history. At 2:53am, a huge explosion ripped through the front of Brighton's Grand Hotel, in an effort to kill Margaret Thatcher and decapitate her administration. It was the first attempt to wipe out an entire government in Britain since the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. Now, for the first time, Secret History talks to the victims of the bomb, those charged with the rescue effort, the aides who were with Mrs Thatcher on that fateful night, and a former member of the IRA. What emerges is the real tale of an historic event, including a dramatic assessment of just how close the IRA came to achieving their primary aim: the assassination of the Prime Minister.