The Falklands War: The Documentary on the Falklands War Argentina does not want you to see!

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Here are some images to go along with the video: 1982 Head to head - How the forces compare; Argentine soldiers (troops) walking on their way to occupy the captured Royal Marines base; British SAS during the Falklands war, April - June 1982; British troops during the Falklands War

On 2 April 2017, it will be 35 years since Argentinian soldiers landed on the Falklands Islands, triggering a violent culmination to a territorial dispute between Margaret Thatcher's Tory government and Argentina's military junta.

The invasion of Port Stanley launched a ten-week war that cost the lives of 655 Argentine troops, 255 British servicemen and three islanders.

Here, we examine the conflict's origins and what the war meant for both countries.

How did the Falklands War start?
Sovereignty over the windswept and sparsely populated islands, situated off the coast of Argentina in the South Atlantic, was a source of tension for decades.

Britain has ruled the Falklands uninterrupted since the mid-19th century and the vast majority of the island's tiny population - fewer than 3,000 at the 2012 census - are descendants of British settlers.

However, in Argentina, where the islands are known as Las Malvinas, the government maintains the country inherited control of them from Spain in the 1800s and point to their proximity to South America to bolster their claim of sovereignty.

In 1982, Argentina's ruling military junta was facing an economic crisis and General Leopoldo Galtieri hoped an invasion would bolster his fading popularity at home.

Tension first started to boil over when a group of Argentine scrap metal-workers landed on British-controlled South Georgia, 810 miles east of the Falklands, on 19 March and raised the Argentinian flag.

Then, on 2 April, around 3,000 Argentine special forces invaded Port Stanley, the islands' capital, setting the scene for conflict.

Did Argentina expect the UK to go to war?
The invasion of Port Stanley invasion caught Whitehall off-guard. Six months earlier, UK intelligence had concluded privately that "the Argentine government would prefer to pursue their sovereignty claim by peaceful means", says The Independent.

Thatcher's government also sent out a signal that Britain had no wish to fight over the islands by scrapping the only British warship in their vicinity, HMS Endurance, in January 1982.

A now-declassified CIA document entitled "Solutions to the Falklands crisis" showed it believed the UK was "prepared" to accept the "ultimate turnover of the islands to Argentinian sovereignty".

It also suggested that islanders who did not wish to become Argentinian citizens could be relocated to Scotland, the Daily Mail reports.

So why did the UK go to war over the Islands?
Like her opposite number in Argentina, Thatcher was concerned about her popularity at home. Still in her first term, she was well behind in the polls and facing the twin threats of internal party dissent and the rise of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

When she learned of the Port Stanley invasion, the prime minister took a "gamble" that war would boost her crumbling powerbase, says Simon Jenkins of The Guardian. Thatcher swiftly announced that the 1,800 islanders were "of British tradition and stock" and despatched a task force to journey 8,000 miles and reclaim the Islands.

Although the war lasted only ten weeks, with the Argentinians sustaining far heavier casualties, British victory was a "desperately close" affair, Jenkins writes.

"The conclusion of most defence analysts is that the Argentinians should have won this war, and had they awaited the south Atlantic storms of June they probably would have done."

What was the legacy of the war?
Thatcher's apparent gamble paid off: the following year's general election gave her the most decisive election victory since that of Labour in 1945.

On a geopolitical level, the Falklands have remained firmly in British hands since 1982. In 2013, 99.8 per cent of islanders voted to remain part of the UK, with only three voting against.

However, tensions between the UK and Argentina bubbled between 2007 and 2015, under Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who many critics accused of fanning the flames of the dispute to take the spotlight off her administration's domestic shortcomings.

However, her successor, Mauricio Macri, seems to have chosen a less confrontational path. Although he upholds Argentine sovereignty over the islands in principle, the President has remained relatively quiet on the subject and his administration has so far seen a thawing of Argentina's relations with the UK.

As with any war, one of the lasting legacies for the soldiers who served in the conflict is the continued pain and trauma caused by long-term injuries.

Former soldier Simon Weston is one of the most known Falklands veterans.

He was on board the RFA Sir Galahad in Port Pleasant on 8 June 1982 when it was bombed and suffered 46 per cent burns.

The ship was carrying thousands of gallons of diesel and petrol as well as ammunition and phosphorus bombs. Out of Weston's platoon of 30 men, 22 were killed."
LTC Stephen C. LTC Greg Henning Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown CW5 (Join to see) CW5 Charlie Poulton SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SSgt (Join to see) TSgt Joe C. SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski SP5 Robert Ruck SCPO Morris RamseyCPL Eric EscasioSPC (Join to see) SrA Christopher Wright

The Falkland Island War came as a deep surprise for Thatcher's Britain, but they acted quickly, benefited from U.S. intelligence of the islands, and gambled by sending the fleet some 8,000 miles from home. That the gamble worked strengthened PM Thatcher's hand immeasurably, and the risks came out favorably this time for Great Britain.

The Brits are still bitter about this.