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Les branches sont tombées il y a une minute.

Les branches sont tombées il y a une minute.
The branches fell a minute ago.
From Lesson 133:Past tense contrast: descriptions vs. completed actions·French

Breakdown of Les branches sont tombées il y a une minute.

être
to be
la minute
the minute
tomber
to fall
il y a
ago
la branche
the branch

Questions & Answers about Les branches sont tombées il y a une minute.

Why is the passé composé used here instead of the imparfait?
The passé composé is used for completed, sudden actions at a specific point in time. Because the branches falling is a single, finished event that happened exactly a minute ago (il y a une minute), we use the passé composé. The imparfait would be used for an ongoing background description, like if the wind was blowing while they fell.
Why do we use sont instead of ont for the passé composé here?
The verb tomber (to fall) is one of the special motion verbs that use être as their helping verb in the passé composé, rather than avoir. So we must say sont tombées instead of ont tombées.
Why does tombées have an extra -es at the end?
When a passé composé uses être as its helping verb, the past participle must agree with the subject in gender and number. Since les branches (the branches) is feminine and plural, we add an -e for feminine and an -s for plural to the base word tombé.
Doesn't il y a usually mean "there is"? Why does it mean "ago" here?
You are right that il y a usually means "there is" or "there are". However, when it is followed by an amount of time like une minute, it becomes a time expression meaning "ago". So il y a une minute translates directly to "a minute ago".

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