Grenada is a nation in the Eastern Caribbean consisting of the island of Grenada itself and several smaller islands. It was colonised by the French in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries before passing under British control with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Grenada became independent from the UK in 1974 as a Commonwealth Realm and remained a realm even after its prime minister, Eric Gairy, was overthrown in a Marxist coup in 1979. Following the murder of Gairy’s successor, Maurice Bishop, in a further coup in 1983, US president Ronald Reagan ordered a highly controversial invasion of the country. Current population c. 125,000.