Falklands war

It was the most unlikely of battlegrounds for a major conflict, a windswept archipelago at the ends of the Earth fought over by two powers half a world apart.
But 25 years after they tussled for the Falkland Islands, Britain and Argentina are still at odds and dealing with the aftershocks of the war that reshaped their political landscapes.
Buenos Aires still lays claim to the islands it lost in the brief, bloody test of wills in 1982 between Argentinian dictator General Leopoldo Galtieri and Britain's Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher.
And British troops continue to patrol the Falklands, a lonely, forgotten clump of dots in the South Atlantic before Argentinia's invasion sparked Britain's biggest air and naval battle since World War II.
Today, the economy of the archipelago is booming, powered by fishing, tourism and the possibility of oil. Yet tensions between the two erstwhile antagonists still simmer.
Only days before Monday's 25th anniversary of the war, Argentina scrapped a deal with Britain to share oil found in the Falklands and accused London of dragging its feet in talks on the islands' sovereignty.
A quarter-century ago, few Brits had even heard of the Falklands Islands. But on April 2, 1982 the nation woke up to find that the remote hilly islands, populated mostly by sheep and penguins, had been invaded by Argentine soldiers.
Three days later, a British squadron was scrambled. With no ceremony and little warning, Britain was at war over a bunch of islands some 12,000 kilometres (7,400 miles) on the other side of the world.
Seventy-one days after that, seven ships, including Argentina's General Belgrano had been sunk, 649 Argentine and 255 British troops had been killed, and Britain emerged victorious.
The future of the islands, which had been ignored for years by London, had been changed forever. Also altered were the fates of the Argentine dictatorship and Thatcher's flagging Conservative government.
For the Falklanders, the war catapulted them out of their isolation and into a new era of prosperity. Today per capita income has soared to some 25,000 dollars a year.
The population has nearly doubled to around 3,000 and Britain maintains another 1,200 troops on the islands, where the Union Jack proudly flies from many homes.