Argentina and the U.K. fought a war over the islands
The competing claims to the island date back hundreds of years, to a period when the British Empire stretched across the world.
The archipelago, which lies 8,000 miles away from the British Isles, was settled by the British in the mid-18th century. Britain withdrew amid a power struggle with Spain over control of the islands. When Argentina declared independence from Spain in 1816, it claimed sovereignty over the islands and established a small settlement there in the 1820s.
Eventually, the British expelled Argentina from the islands in 1833 and established the Falklands as an official colony.
Argentina never gave up its claim to the islands, and in 1982, Argentina’s military junta, led by Lieutenant General Leopoldo Galtieri, launched an effort to recapture them.
Galtieri saw his chance when Argentine scrap metal workers occupied and raised the Argentinian flag at an abandoned whaling station on the British territory of South Georgia, a small island east of the Falklands. When they refused British orders to leave, Argentina sent warships ostensibly to protect the workers. The U.K. sent its own naval vessel in response.