Video: 'Mountbatten: Death Of A Royal'

(Monday, August 27, 1979, morning BST) — Earl Mountbatten of Burma, one of the heroes of modern British history, his grandson Nicholas, and two others were killed today by a bomb set by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, hidden aboard his fishing boat in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland.

Mountbatten, a second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II, was 79.

In Belfast, Northern Ireland, the Provisional Irish Republican Army issued a statement taking responsibility for the killing, which it called “an execution,” and vowed to continue the “noble struggle to drive the British intruders out of our native land.”