User:OnBeyondZebrax/sandbox/History of the Falklands Islands

The islands were uninhabited when discovered by Europeans. Recent archaeological discoveries suggest that the Yaghan people of Tierra del Fuego may have made the journey to the islands. An archipelago in the region of the Falkland Islands appeared on Portuguese maps from the early 16th century. English Captain John Strong sailed between the two principal islands in 1690 and called the passage "Falkland Channel" (now Falkland Sound). From this body of water the island group later took its collective name.France established a colony at Port St. Louis, on East Falkland's Berkeley Sound coast in 1764. In early 1770 Spanish commander, Don Juan Ignacio de Madariaga, briefly visited Port Egmont. On June 10 he returned from Argentina with five armed ships and 1400 soldiers forcing the British to leave Port Egmont. This action sparked the Falkland Crisis between 10 July 1770 to 22 January 1771 when Britain and Spain almost went to war over the islands. However with the growing economic pressures stemming from the upcoming American War of Independence, the British government decided that it should withdraw its presence from many overseas settlements in 1774.

Spain, which had a garrison at Puerto Soledad on East Falkands, ruled the islands from Buenos Aires until 1811 when it was forced to withdraw. This was due to the military pressures created by the Peninsular war in Spain and the growing calls for independence by its colonies in South America. Following the departure of the Spanish settlers, the Falkland Islands became the domain of whalers and sealers who used the islands to shelter from the worst of the South Atlantic weather.

In 1823, the United Provinces of the River Plate granted fishing rights to Jorge Pacheco and Luis Vernet. Travelling to the islands in 1824, the first expedition failed almost as soon as it landed, and Pacheco chose not to continue with the venture. In 1828, the United Provinces government granted Vernet all of East Falkland including all its resources, and exempted him from taxation if a colony could be established within three years. On 10 June 1829, Vernet was designated as 'civil and military commandant' of the islands (no Governor was ever appointed) and granted a monopoly on seal hunting rights. The Argentinian assertions of sovereignty provided the spur for Britain to send a naval task force in order to finally and permanently return to the islands.

On 3 January 1833, Captain James Onslow, of the brig-sloop HMS Clio, arrived at Vernet's settlement at Port Louis to request that the flag of the United Provinces of the River Plate be replaced with the British one, and for the administration to leave the islands. Following their return to the Falkland Islands and the failure of Vernet's settlement, the British had largely maintained Port Louis as a military outpost. The British Government continued with its plans to colonise the Falkland Islands, appointing Lt Richard Moody as the first Lieutenant Governor of the Islands.

With the exception of an attempt by President Juan Peron to buy the Falkland Islands in 1953 which was rejected as inconceivable by the British government, the immediate post-war period was fairly uneventful. However, a series of incidents in the 1960s marked the intensification of Argentine sovereignty claims. An Aerolíneas Argentinas DC-4 on an internal flight to Santa Cruz with 35 passengers was hijacked and flown to the Falkland Islands. A group of 18 ardent Argentine nationalists, members of the Tacuara right-wing nationalist group, forced the pilot to fly to Stanley. On October of the same year a group of Argentine naval special forces conducted covert landings from a submarine. In 1976, after a military junta took control of the country, Argentina covertly established a military base on Southern Thule.

Argentina invaded the islands on 2 April 1982, using special forces, which landed at Mullet Creek and advanced on Government House in Stanley, with a secondary force coming in from Yorke Bay. They encountered little opposition, there being only a small force of fifty-seven British marines and eleven sailors, in addition to the Falkland Islands Defence Force (who were later sent to Fox Bay). There was only one Argentine fatality. The event garnered international attention at a level which the islands had never experienced before, and made them a household name in the UK.For a brief period, the Falkland Islands found themselves under Argentine control. The British responded with an expeditionary force that landed seven weeks later and, after fierce fighting, forced the Argentine garrison to surrender on 14 June 1982. The war proved to be an anomaly in a number of different respects, not least that it proved that small arms still had a role to play. It also had major consequences for the Junta, which was toppled soon afterwards.