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Three hundred miles off the Argentina coast in the south Atlantic lay the Falkland Islands, consisting of two main isles (East and West Falkland) and about two hundred smaller islands. The only town is also the capital of the region, Port Stanley, and it is from there that the British territories of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands are administered. With a total population of only a couple thousand stalwart individuals (and many more sheep and livestock) the Falklands seems an odd place to fight a war over, but thats exactly what happened in 1982.
Ownership of the islands has always been a hotly contested issue between the governments of Argentina and Great Britain. Argentina had claimed the islands since 1820, but the British actually occupied the islands from 1833 onwards. On March 26th, 1982 the Argentinean dictatorship of General Galtieri decided to invade the islands in an operation titled Operación Rosario, not for any true military objective, but simply to save his skin, and the other heavy handed rulers of Argentina.
Civil unrest had been steadily growing, inflation was taking its toll on the economy (which was already in shambles), and if the people did not have an external enemy they would soon turn on the junta. Why not take what they had claimed was theirs for all those decades? On April 2nd the war began, with thousands of Argentine troops landing on the Falklands. |
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