#historyonleo #onthisday On March 1981 Bobby Sands, Provisional IRA militant incarcerated by the British, starts hunger strike demanding that he and other Irish Nationalist prisoners be treated as political prisoners instead of common criminals. His strike will be joined by number of other prisoners and become widely publicised. Despite international pressure, government of Margaret Thatcher won't yield to strikers' demands. Sands and nine other prisoners would die, becoming martyrs for Irish Nationalist cause and leading to new escalation of Northern Ireland's Troubles.