00:00On the morning of 20 July 1974, sirens sounded across the island nation of Cyprus, warning that an invasion was underway.
00:09Over 40,000 Turkish troops descended in Kairinia north of Cyprus while Ankara's air forces carried out an aerial assault campaign.
00:17The Turkish invasion came just five days after Greek-Cypriot nationalists, supported by the Greek junta,
00:22staged a coup to overthrow the country's democratically elected president, Archbishop Makarios III.
00:28The nationalists, fighting under the Cypriot National Guard seal, aimed to overthrow Makarios and unite the Mediterranean island with Greece in a movement known as Enosis.
00:37Makarios managed to flee Cyprus through Paphos and arrived in New York where he delivered a speech on July 19th, condemning the coup and denouncing the unification intent.
00:47By then, Ankara's military preparations had already been put in place and the invasion was carried out the following morning.
00:54But Turkey insists that it had to intervene to protect the Turkish-Cypriot minority.
00:59Fighting took place for a month where Turkish forces are estimated to have killed some 3,000 Cypriots, mainly civilians.
01:06The military standoff was heavily mismatched as Cypriot troops fought without air cover or modern weaponry.
01:11In mid-August, Turkey launched the second phase of its invasion, codenamed Attila II, which saw its forces advance and occupy large stretches of land.
01:21By the end of their second offensive, Ankara had controlled over 35% of the island, which to this day it still illegally occupies.
01:28As many as 200,000 Greek Cypriots were displaced from their homes and were forced to flee south in the month-long offensive.
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