At 6:23 PM on February 23 1981, Lieutenant Colonel of the Civil Guard Antonio Tejero stormed the lower house of the Cortes while Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo was about to be confirmed as Prime Minister of Spain. Adolfo Suarez, the first democratic Prime Minister of Spain after Franco, was also present.  

This brief clip shows Tejero climbing up the dais, shouting “Nobody move!” and soon thereafter firing a few shots in the air amidst a few scuffles and shouts of “Silence!”; “Nobody move!”; “Get down on the floor!” Everyone in the chamber obeys and ducks under their desks except for three persons - Adolfo Suarez, General Manuel Guitierrez Mellado (Deputy Prime Minister), and Santiago Carrillo (Secretary General of the Communist Party). I’ve been obsessed by this Bartleby-like gesture of refusal by those three for the last two weeks.

Javier Cercas’ Anatomy of a Moment: Thirty Five Minutes in History & Imagination mulls over these figures and moments with such startling originality that the closest comparison I could think of was Tolstoy’s unforgettable meditation on history over the last 100 pages of War & Peace. 

I would be very grateful if someone could point me to the entire 35 minutes of footage that was recorded in the Cortes.