The United States and a coalition of Caribbean countries invaded the island nation of Grenada at dawn on 25 October 1983. Codenamed Operation Urgent Fury by the U.S. military, it resulted in military occupation within a few days. It was triggered by strife within the People's Revolutionary Government, which led to the house arrest and execution of the previous leader and second Prime Minister of Grenada, Maurice Bishop, and to the establishment of the Revolutionary Military Council, with Hudson Austin as chairman. Following the invasion there was an interim government appointed, and then general elections held in December 1984.

The invasion drew criticism from many countries. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher privately disapproved of the mission, in part because she was not consulted in advance and was given very short notice of the military operation, but she supported it in public. On October 28, 1983, three days after the invasion, the U.N. Security Council by a vote of 11 to one passed a resolution "deeply deploring" the invasion, calling it a "flagrant violation of international law" (the United States vetoed the resolution). The United Nations General Assembly condemned it as "a flagrant violation of international law" on 2 November 1983, by a vote of 108 to 9.

The invading force consisted of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, the 82nd Airborne Division, and elements of the former Rapid Deployment Force, U.S. Marines, U.S. Army Delta Force, Navy SEALs, and a small group Air Force TACPs from the 21st TASS Shaw AFB ancillary forces, totaling 7,600 troops, together with Jamaican forces and troops of the Regional Security System (RSS). The invaders quickly defeated Grenadian resistance after a low-altitude assault by the Rangers and 82nd Airborne at Point Salines Airport on the island's south end, and a Marine helicopter and amphibious landing at Pearls Airport on the north end. Austin's military government was deposed. An advisory council was designated by Sir Paul Scoon, Governor-General of Grenada, to administer the government until the 1984 elections.

The invasion date of 25 October is now a national holiday in Grenada, called Thanksgiving Day, commemorating the freeing of several political prisoners who were subsequently elected to office. A truth and reconciliation commission was launched in 2000 to re-examine some of the controversies of that tumultuous period in the 1980s; in particular, the commission made an unsuccessful attempt to locate the remains of Maurice Bishop's body, which had been disposed of at Austin's order and never found.

The invasion exposed communication and coordination problems between the different branches of the U.S. military when operating together as a joint force. This triggered post-action investigations resulting in sweeping operational changes in the form of the Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act.

In 1974, Sir Eric Gairy led Grenada to independence from the United Kingdom, but his term in office was marred by civil unrest. Although his Grenada United Labour Party claimed victory in the general election of 1976, the opposition did not accept the result as legitimate. During his tenure, many Grenadians believed Gairy was personally responsible for the economic decline of the island and accused him of corruption. The civil unrest took the form of street violence between Gairy's private militia, the Mongoose Gang, and a militia organized by the communist New Jewel Movement (NJM) party.

On 13 March 1979, while Gairy was temporarily out of the country, Maurice Bishop and his NJM seized power in a nearly bloodless coup. He established the People's Revolutionary Government, suspended the constitution, and detained several political prisoners. Bishop was a forceful speaker who introduced Marxist ideology to Grenadians while also appealing to Black Americans during the 1970s heyday of the Black Panther movement. After seizing power, Bishop attempted to implement the first Marxist-Leninist nation in the British Commonwealth. To lend itself an appearance of constitutional legitimacy, the new administration continued to recognize Queen Elizabeth II as Queen of Grenada and Sir Paul Scoon as her viceregal representative.

The Bishop government began constructing the Point Salines International Airport with the help of the United Kingdom, Cuba, Libya, Algeria, and other nations. The British government proposed the airport in 1954 when Grenada was still a British colony. Canadians designed it, the British government underwrote it, and a London firm built it. The U.S. government accused Grenada of constructing facilities to aid a Soviet-Cuban military buildup in the Caribbean. The accusation was based on the fact that the new airport's 9,000-foot (2,700 m) runway would be able to accommodate the largest Soviet aircraft, such as the An-12, An-22, and An-124. Such a facility, according to the U.S., would enhance the Soviet and Cuban transportation of weapons to Central American insurgents and expand Soviet regional influence. Bishop's government claimed that the airport was built to handle commercial aircraft carrying tourists, pointing out that such jets could not land at Pearls Airport with its 5,200-foot (1,600 m) runway on the island's north end, and that Pearls could not be expanded because its runway abutted a mountain on one side and the ocean on the other.