Just before Christmas 1981 an Argentine businessman by the name of Constantino Sergio Davidoff visited an abandoned whaling station on the remote island of South Georgia, under contract to remove any scrap metal he could find. He landed without the proper permits from the British government, who (like the Falkland Islands, another British colony in the region) administered the place. The British authorities cried foul.
Davidoff sent a crew of workmen to the island anyway, and within weeks the incident had escalated into an international incident. The British government dispatched a warship, HMS Endurance, and the Argentineans, determined to press their claim for The Malvinas (Their name for the Falklands), ordered their own warship, the Bahia Buen Succeso to the area.
2nd April 1982 at 6am in the Falkland Islands. Sleepy Port Stanley awoke to find a couple of thousand Argentinean troops on the doorstep. In spite of intense diplomacy led by Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared war, and the Argentinean dictator, General Galtieri followed suit. Three days later a massive armada of navy ships left Southampton and things got serious.
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