The Daily History Chronicle

On August 21, 1968, half a million Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia overnight to crush Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring reforms, a movement its own architects insisted was renewal, not rebellion. Soviet leaders called it fraternal rescue, Czechoslovaks experienced it as occupation, and many of the soldiers sent to carry it out arrived not knowing which one was true. This episode follows the invasion hour by hour, from the seizure of Prague's airport to the unarmed civilians who died defending a radio station, and asks what actually separates an ally's protection from an ally's control.