30 January 1972: Bloody Sunday –  British soldiers shot 26 people taking part in a Civil Rights March in Derry City. 13 were killed outright and another man died of his wounds later. Widespread condemnation followed throughout Ireland and abroad. The British Army claimed that its soldiers had fired at identifiable gunmen and bombers. The participants and survivors of the March and many independent witnesses refuted this.

The shootings took place as a major Civil Rights March was coming to an end. Sporadic rioting had broken out involving some hundreds of youths and members of the British Army. These developments were not unexpected and not seen as out of the ordinary at the time.

Then for some reason never satisfactorily explained members of the 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment  who were deployed in the City that day opened indiscriminate fire on rioters and innocent bystanders alike, shooting many people and arresting many more. At the time panic and fear were then quickly replaced by anger and grief. These gruesome events were a watershed for many Irish People and undermined any conception they had that the British were neutral in the North of Ireland.

To add insult to injury the subsequent Widgery Tribunal in April 1972 exonerated the soldiers involved of any wrongdoing saying that at most the firing from the soldiers was 'bordering on the reckless'!  

After many years of campaigning by the victims & relatives of that day there was a Full Public Inquiry held at the Guildhall in Derry which led in 2010 to the then British Prime Minister David Cameron to issue a Full Apology for what happened on Bloody Sunday 1972:

But the conclusions of this report are absolutely clear. There is no doubt, there is nothing equivocal, there are no ambiguities. What happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable. It was wrong.

https://www.bbc.com/news/10322295

The men shot dead that day were:

Patrick ('Paddy') Doherty ( 31)

Gerald Donaghy (17)

John ('Jackie ') Duddy (17)

Hugh Gilmour (17)

Michael Kelly (17)

Michael McDaid (20)

Kevin McElhinney (17)

Bernard D('Barney') McGuigan (41)

Gerald McKinney (35)

William ('Williee') McKinney  (26)

William Nash (19 )

James ('Jim')  Wray (22)

John Young (17)

John Johnston (59 ) – died 16  June 1972.