Why the Falkland Islands are British 🇬🇧🤯 Argentina vs Britain 🇦🇷 — Transcript

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1. 0:00How did these islands, sitting literally
2. 0:02at the edge of the world, end up
3. 0:04belonging to Britain? After all,
4. 0:06Argentina, Spain, and France claimed
5. 0:08them, too, but in the end, Britain came
6. 0:10out on top. It all began in 1690, when a
7. 0:12British ship searching for Spanish gold
8. 0:14stumbled upon these islands. It was
9. 0:16cold, wet, and gloomy, just like home,
10. 0:19they thought, so they established a
11. 0:20settlement in 1765. But it turned out
12. 0:23the French were already here and had
13. 0:24founded their own settlement a year
14. 0:26earlier. Then the Spanish arrived and
15. 0:28told the story of how in the 15th
16. 0:29century the Pope drew an imaginary line
17. 0:32and divided all new lands between Spain
18. 0:34and Portugal, so the Falkland Islands
19. 0:36belonged to them. Now, we never signed
20. 0:38anything. So, Spain bought the
21. 0:40settlement from the French and tried to
22. 0:41drive the British out. The British left,
23. 0:43came back, and literally put up a sign
24. 0:46saying, "This is our land." And then
25. 0:48left again to deal with their rebellious
26. 0:50colonies in North America. And for the
27. 0:51next 37 years, the islands remained
28. 0:53under Spanish control. But then the
29. 0:55Spanish Empire began to fall apart. The
30. 0:57garrison left the islands, and Spain's
31. 0:59colonies in South America started
32. 1:00gaining independence. So, the United
33. 1:02Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, the
34. 1:04future Argentina, claimed the islands as
35. 1:06their inheritance from Spain and set up
36. 1:07their own administration there. Then
37. 1:09Britain returned saying, "Seriously, did
38. 1:11you not read the sign?" and took back
39. 1:13control of the islands, which became a
40. 1:15pit stop for ships sailing through the
41. 1:16Drake Passage or the Strait of Magellan.
42. 1:18150 years later, Argentina tried to
43. 1:21reclaim the islands hoping that 8,000 mi
44. 1:23was simply too far for Britain to go to
45. 1:25war over them. But they were wrong. The
46. 1:27Iron Lady sent a fleet, and after 74
47. 1:29days of fighting, Britain retook the
48. 1:31Falkland Islands, which remain British
49. 1:32to this day. And even a referendum in
50. 1:342013 showed that 99.8% of the population
51. 1:38wanted the islands to remain a British
52. 1:39Overseas Territory.