Stuff You Should Know - What was the Falkland Islands War all about anyway?

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

The battle between Britain and Argentina over the rocky, cold Falkland Islands is one of the weirder wars in history. Learn all about it today! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry over there. And that, friends, makes this Stuff You Should Know. The final studio recording. That's pretty good, Chuck. Maybe not final, that sounded a little final.

The temporarily for now final studio recording. The indefinitely suspended recordings in the studio. Yeah, starting after, obviously, everyone knows what's going on in this world. I was about to say this country. What? Don't be coy. But we are getting set up in our homes.

Yeah. I set up a system yesterday that I just didn't quite trust for today's. Yeah, it was a little premature to test the day after, right? I think so, but I posted a picture of it on the movie crush page and was pretty excited. I was like, guys, after 12 years, I'm finally a dude recording a podcast in a basement.

Right, you went full circle backwards. Full circle. That's nice. It was funny, people were saying stuff like, just make sure your mom keeps it down upstairs and that kind of thing. Yeah, I saw that picture. I love the quilt tablecloth.

It's really home-spun. It's beautiful. Yeah, that's my daughter's quilt. I had to gank that. Oh, no. But it's not okay. It all sounds, I mean, she's not cold at night. We have other blankets.

Okay, good. It sounds pretty good though. The band room already had sound baffling. Okay. I just sort of moved my bass player out of the way and because this is kind of over in his corner and just kind of positioned it where I'm speaking into this sort of dense corner

and I did a sound check and it sounds pretty good. That's great, man. So look for that coming soon, everyone. Hopefully you won't know a difference. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we should just not even mention it and see if anybody notices. Well, our aim is to keep bringing everyone shows

every week and to not, because podcasts are gonna be a pretty big deal moving forward for people, you know? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, like if we can record remotely and still release on time, like that'll hopefully be a source of comfort for people who are just sitting at home bored,

getting a little stir crazy. So yeah, that's the aim. So our two aims are to not come down with coronavirus ourselves. That's number one. Yeah, and then also keep releasing on time and on schedule. That's number two.

All right, so let's do it. Yeah, let's do it, Chuck. So we're talking the Falklands War and you requested this one, right? So this is your idea. Yeah, do you know why? It was one of those things that happens to us every now and then where we think of something

that we remember, but you know nothing about. Like I remember this, I was 11 years old, but I'm like, what was that all about? Where are the Falkland Islands even? Right, what's going on? Now I know all about it. Yes, but I was wondering if you requested it because of the fact that it's starting to heat up again

geopolitically down there. No, I had nothing to do with it. Okay, because it is, it turns out it is. We'll talk about it at the end there, but I was like, wow, that's very prescient. Chuck's got his finger on the pulse of like some real arcane geopolitics right now. No, this was all just sort of yearbook memories.

Right, the Falkland Islands had stayed cool. This summer, see you next fall. So I was the first one to write on your crack. Did people do that to yours? Oh yeah, that's timeless, man. So what we're talking about though is the Falkland Islands War in 1982, Great Britain went to war with Argentina over a little tiny group.

Well, they're not so tiny, we'll get into that, but as far as livable, thriveable areas, these little rocky islands out in the middle of nowhere in the Atlantic Ocean. And not to say that they're useless, they're definitely not useless. There are people who live there and have lived there for hundreds of years now,

but there's been archaeological studies of the area and they've turned up zero evidence of prehistoric people living there. So it's not a highly valuable area, but it is a place that some people call home and we're in no position to poo poo anywhere somebody calls home. It's just, again, geopolitically speaking,

it's really bizarre that Great Britain went to war with Argentina over this particular set of islands. Yeah, and we'll get into the ins and outs of that, but in general, it's fair to say that old-time colonialism had a part in it, but it was also the fact that the Falkland Islands are not super far, if you're talking about

the size of the world, from Antarctica. And anytime there's, there are different countries that wanna be set up near other places, and seemingly unpopular land can become popular. It is, yeah, every country wants to stake some sort of outpost near the ancient sleeping ones, the eldritch gods that are asleep beneath Antarctica right now to worship them

when they wake up. But that can lead to disputes among nations. And in particular, Argentina is like, hey man, these are like 400 miles off of our coast. Surely they belong to us. They're about 1,000 miles above Antarctica, the northern most outpost of Antarctica. But the British say, no, no, no,

these are, this is a British territory, even though it is nowhere near Great Britain in any sense of the word. Hey, that never stopped them before. It really hasn't. But it does, it has to do with colonialism and the British Empire, but they've said, no, we've been here for a while, this is our place.

Yeah, and the Grabster put this together, very detailed account. But we're gonna talk a little bit about the origin of these islands and why different countries thought that they were theirs. Yes, starting in about, I think, well, they think possibly Magellan, maybe Amerigo Vespucci, love that guy's name.

They may have seen the Falklands, but the first British person to have landed on the Falklands is named John Strong. And he showed up in 1690. And the Falkland Islands look kind of, if you squint and use 80% of your imagination, look a bit like a butterfly. And the body of the butterfly is a channel

that runs between the two main islands, East and West Falklands. And so he named that channel the Falkland Sound after the guy who was running the show for the Admiralty, the Navy, I guess, of Great Britain at the time. And he got his title from Scotland. So it actually is kind of appropriate that you would name this area after someplace in Scotland

because it is kind of Scottish climate-wise. Apparently it's a little soggy. It's kind of cold. And you kind of have to like that kind of weather to survive there and not go crazy. Yeah, and he wasn't the first person. Other people had discovered it before. People came afterward.

And it's sort of so removed that people showed up afterward. In 1701, the French, 1764, more French. And they both said, well, nothing's going on here. This is ours. And they named them French names. Yeah, the guy who really made the first real attempt at settling the place, Antoine Louis de Bougainville, he set up a colony and the Spanners showed up

and they said, hey, you know how we basically own South America? We own this too. It's only 400 miles east of us. So get out of here. And Bougainville said, okay, but I set up this legit colony and I want some money for it. So they gave them what would amount today

to about $1.1 million for it. Not bad. Not bad at all. So the French said, okay, Spanish, this is yours. We recognize that. Well, at about the same time, some English settlers showed up and they said, we're going to settle this place. Had no idea that the French were even there.

Had even less of an idea that the French had just sold their claim to it to Spain. And the British kind of made their home there for about a year before they noticed a French settlement there and went over and said, hey, this is our place, you need to get out. Yeah, it's funny too, because Ed made a very Ed joke.

He said, Q, Yackety sex, because that's kind of what it sounded like at first. Like Britain settled it. They didn't even notice that there was a French settlement there until a year later. And then this weird exchange starting in 19, I'm sorry, 1769, started going back and forth where... Summer of love.

Yeah, you can say that every time we mentioned a year from now. I almost let it slip by and I was like, last possible second, I'm going for it. That's pretty good. So this starting in 1769, this weird exchange started where British ships and Spanish ships would go back and forth trading letters that got a little more heated saying, no, you leave,

no, you leave. You. And then eventually Spain said, oh, you know what, we're going to send all of our ships. And Britain said, fine, it's yours and in a certain way. Yeah, in a certain way. And this is really kind of critical because I guess the Spanish forced the British out,

but I don't know if there was any kind of treaty signed or any kind of document. It didn't sound like it. Okay, so the Spanish forced the British out and basically I guess took at least possession of the islands. But this was a big deal. This was, the Falklands have been a site of international wars for years now.

And the first one was called the Falkland Islands Crisis of 1770 where the French were down there, the English were down there, the Spanish were down there. And all of them wanted this island, mainly because the English and the French didn't want the Spanish to control the entire Southwestern hemisphere of the world,

which they basically did by controlling South America for the most part. And conversely, the Spanish were like, I don't want the French or the English to have even just a little bit of a toehold here so they need to get out. But it was a big deal. It was literally called the Falkland Islands Crisis of 1770.

Yeah, and America was like, oh, can we please be a country quickly so we can get down there too? All right. We'll just hang in the background and manipulate everything. All right, so after that crisis point, England and Spain both had settlements down there

for quite a few years. And they were just sort of both down there. It was kind of odd if you look historically, that's usually not how things go. Yeah, apparently the crisis never came to a full head and actually just went to a breaking point and just continued to simmer, I guess, with everybody hanging out on the island.

I bet there were some good times too though. Maybe so. In the 1800s, they both left. And then that kind of, it was like a reboot almost for the Falklands. No one really had a claim. It fell into, I mean, it sounds scary on one hand, but it also sounds like a wild party

because pirates and whalers basically, Ed described it as had their way with the island for two decades, so I guess they had sex with the island. They literally humped the island. That's what it was like down there. But it fell into lawlessness and piracy, like we said, and then the Argentinian revolution came around, Spain lost all the claim, but Argentina, it was so rough.

Argentina tried to say, hey, this is ours and put governors on the island, but they got rebuffed by the party scene. Yeah, the party people said, get out of here. And they actually did. The Argentinians failed to install any kind of government on the island. And so in 1834, the British came to the island

and the British showed up with the governor and they said, we're installing some law around here. And either they were more apt to kill people to get their way or the people down there already were more down with the British than the Argentinians. I'm not sure, but either way, the British were successful at installing a government there starting in 1834. So here's the thing, from that moment on,

the British had a government set up and connected to the government of Great Britain from that moment on. And that is basically the basis of the claim that they make, that they say, we have been living on these islands in one way or another continuously since 1834. Of course this is our territory. Yeah, I mean, they built a town, Stanley,

which is as far as I know, still the sort of biggest thing going there. Oh, by far. They were farmers, our farmers, sheep, cattle, pigs. They would do a little fishing. It was a place where boats could stop off and get fixed or fueled up or something or resupplied. Yeah, they make a little money on the side from tourists

who come to see people humping islands. But we're talking less than 5,000 people and they're all basically Scottish and Welsh descendants of those settlers. So if you were to go down to the Falkland Islands in the early 1980s and even now, you would think this is a British outpost. Yeah, dude, as recently as 2013,

Great Britain held a referendum for self-determination among the Falklanders and all but four, four residents, not 4%, four residents voted to stay a British territory. What did they want to do? The four, all they want to do is hump the island. They don't want to be bothered to think about politics at all. Which they call the Ross Perot. Ross Perot.

Hey, get it, get it. Oh boy, maybe we should take a break. Take a little cool shower. And we'll come back with more Falklandomania right after this. We'll come back with more Falklandomania right after this. To come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever.

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or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles. Stuff you should know. Okay, so the British are saying, hey, not only have we had a claim on this since at least 1834, the people who live there consider themselves British. It's ours. But the Argentinian said, no, you know what?

The Spanish held this place before the British and we inherited any title to it from the Spanish after the revolution. There's a, it's closer to us. What else do you want? What do you want to hear? And the Argentinians claim on the Falklands is actually fairly tenuous, but that has not stopped them

from kind of coveting these islands and making attempts to go after them over the years. Yeah, I mean, you know, Argentina will say, you guys left in 1774, so you abandoned it. Britain would say, well, you never establish any kind of sovereignty there. There were no indigenous people. It's not like we came down here and kicked all your people

out of here and displaced them. So there's really no big moral claims either. And I don't know if I know enough about it even after all this to really say without making some people mad, but it seems like it was Britain's. Yeah, I mean, yeah, no, it's still like a point of national soreness in Argentina.

And I think there's a little bit of national pride in the UK of it. But yes, the fact that the people who live there and have or descended some people who have lived there since 1834, considered themselves British, that's, I agree with you. That to me says it's a British territory. Which ostensibly would make Argentina

the invading force, the bad people. Yes, and that's the thing. Like we always have to have good guys and bad guys. And they're, you know, both sides did good and bad things during this conflict. They were bad people on both sides. But you can, oh man, you can make man, Chuck. You can make the case that, yes,

if you have to identify an aggressor in this situation, it was Argentina who did it. Because again, the Spanish settled it before the British, but then the Spanish left and the Argentinians overthrew the Spanish. There were no indigenous people that lived on these islands that were connected to Argentina in any way. There's really no legal or moral claim that Argentina had

aside from proximity, and that just doesn't really hold up when it comes to territorial disputes. So yes, you can really make the case that Argentina was the aggressor. And it doesn't hurt that the proportion of Argentinian listeners to stuff you should know pales in comparison to the British proportion.

So leading up to the war, this is sort of the scene. You've got the people living on the Falkland Islands. The economy wasn't great. It's never been booming, like we said. It's a very small seaside hamlet of farmers. They were depending on the British government subsidies to even get by. And this is back in the late 70s, early 80s.

Britain says, you know what? We would like to start trading with Argentina. We would like to help these Islanders out, maybe let them move some wool, maybe make it easier to get fuel and supplies. And Margaret Thatcher comes into power and says, maybe it might also be nice to sell them weapons in Argentina.

Yeah. They need missiles and we've got them. Yeah, she opened her trench coat. She's like, what do you need? What do you need? I got it, I got it. And everyone went, whoa, iron lady. I'm not saying she was nude under there.

No, just that she had missiles in her trench coat. Gotcha. So there was one other thing. It wasn't just that the British were being patrimonious and really wanted to help the Falklanders out by opening up trade between them and the Argentinians. They also wanted to potentially offload responsibility for the Falklands to Argentina.

Kind of like how you would consider selling a car that you knew maybe had 50 miles left in it. Oh man. But you could sink some money into repairing it or whatever, or you can sell it to some Schmo. And Great Britain identified that this would be a great bargaining chip. The Argentinians really want this thing.

So maybe we can sell them this used car in addition to selling them some missiles for a few billion pounds. Yeah. Argentina said, can I take it for a spin? And Britain went, I can't find the keys right now, but if we go ahead and make the deal, I'll see if I can find them.

It runs great though. Yeah, exactly. So just trust me. But imagine what you just said in a British accent. Yeah, I thought about doing it, but no. So the thing is, is this didn't go over very well with Great Britain. They were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you can't just,

these are British subjects in some form or another. You can't just abandon them to the Argentinians. You can't sell them out. And the people on the island of the Falklands were not very happy with this either. Supposedly they used to call themselves Kelpers. And I think I get the impression that's one of those things

that they can still call themselves Kelpers, but if you're from Argentina and you call them Kelpers, then that's fighting words. Okay. But they did not like the idea of being sold off to the Argentinians as a pawn in a larger trade negotiation to sell missiles. That just didn't sit well with them.

No, and you get why? I totally get why. And the other problem is, this is just so neo-lib too. The Thatcher administration went in and was like, this is really what we want to do, sell missiles, but we're not going to give one way or another. There's no compromise on the Falklands. It's either all or nothing.

And they, I guess, wanted to open trade to the Argentinians but didn't want to give them to the Argentinians, but the Argentinians wanted them. And rather than find a compromise, like I said, it was just all or nothing. And they just left it as is. They basically scared the pants off of the Falkland Islanders saying we're willing

to basically leave you guys hanging. But at the same time, they weren't willing to pull the trigger and go all the way and let Argentina have the Falklands and maybe administer them correctly. Who knows? So instead, the Falkland Islands were left in this weird geopolitical limbo

in starting about 1979, I believe, 1980, to where no one quite knew exactly how interested Great Britain was in holding these islands. Argentina was very interested in getting these islands. And the Falkland Islanders were caught in the middle of this. Yeah, and on the Argentinian side, they were sort of in the midst

of a right-wing military dictatorship that after a 76 coup, they were not nice people. They terrorized people. They murdered their opponents. They imprisoned people. It was called the Dirty War. Within that, or a few years after that in 1981, there was an internal coup within that same party

where a general Leopoldo Galtieri, good? Sure. All right. He went into power, but still that same right-wing faction. And they wanted not only the Falklands, they wanted the South, they wanted South Georgia Island and South Sandwich Islands and basically wanted that whole sort of South Atlantic area

because of Antarctica. Yeah, yeah. So they, the other thing is a lot of people point to this. Did you mention the name of that, the dictatorship? Oh, the NPR? No, it's the opposite of the NPR. It's the NRP. The NRP, yeah. It's not the opposite.

National reorganization process. Well, I mean, instead of the ethos of NPR. Oh, it is, I guess. I guess, although they're both into reeducation for sure. Oh boy. So Argentina basically was saying like, okay, we're a military junta. We don't know what to do with the economy.

We're super oppressive, especially against our opposition. We'll like make you disappear and murder your family and all this stuff. This is a bad jam at home. We need something to make everybody feel good about being Argentinian again. Yep.

Maybe, maybe. If we go get these Falkland Islands, this little adventurism that we go on, will restore patriotism in Argentina and will make everybody look the other way on what's called the dirty war that we've been fighting for the last few years since we've come to power. And that was kind of like the big impetus toward Argentina.

They had like these military aspirations because it was after all the military coup that took over as a military dictatorship. So what else are you gonna do? Military stuff. But at the same time, Britain was widely viewed around the world as not really caring much

about what happened to the Falklands. And I think that that gave Argentina an overblown sense of how easy it would be to just go ahead and take these islands once and for all as their own. Yeah, they needed this for nationalism. They couldn't count on Diego Maradona to come in and save the day for another four or five years.

Okay. You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? He was a soccer player. Yeah. He must have been a contemporary of Paley's then, huh? The hand of God. That was a very famous soccer goal that he scored. I think it was.

The hand of, you can't use your hands in soccer. Exactly. Huh. Look it up. Okay. So I think that's kind of sets the table for what's about to happen here. It's not like England or, I'm sorry, geez, I always do that.

Let's just say Britain to be safe. That's what I've been doing. Britain wasn't really planning for this, even though there'd been a lot of back and forth about the Falklands. I don't think they expected, ultimately, a surprise attack. They weren't really prepared.

Like you mentioned, the Argentines thought it would kind of go pretty easily because they didn't seem like they cared about it, the Britain, the Brits. Yeah. And they're like, we're gonna go get all these islands. But then this weird sort of start to the war, to the start of a very weird war happened, which was an incident at South Georgia Island

with a scrap metal dealer of all things. Yeah. So I mean, at that time, remember the Argentinean dictatorship was like just looking for any opportunity to take these islands. And that scrap metal dealer got a contract to dismantle the whaling station in South Georgia Island. And so we chartered an Argentinean Navy vessel

to carry him and his salvage crew over there. And Argentina actually thought, this would be a good opportunity for us to secretly invade South Georgia Island. I mean, invade by way of just sort of parking their car there and saying, hey, this is ours. Exactly. Exactly.

And they didn't even, as they were backing in, somebody else was coming in front ways. Oh, Seinfeld. Yes. They had to stand there and argue for a while. But finally the Argentinians won. And when they got, this is the weird thing. When they got to South Georgia Island,

the first thing they did, the salvage crew, was raise the Argentinean flag. They replaced the Union Jack with the Argentinean flag. It's an act of aggression. Dude, you could be a second grade Cub Scout and recognize that you are not supposed to do something like that. Not even as a joke,

which is what Argentina ultimately claimed that was. You're just kidding around. Just joking, was their international diplomatic response. Yeah, and Britain does not take kindly to that. No, because they knew that Argentina wanted these islands. But here's the thing, it was a really stupid thing to do, because right when British diplomats pointed out that they had done this and demanded

that it be removed and the Union Jack be put up, the Argentinians were like, just kidding, just kidding and put the flag back up. But it immediately put the British on high alert. The diplomatic tensions were raised. It was a dumb thing to do, and if they were planning on really tactically invading and holding the Falklands,

because it got the British's attention. Yeah, it didn't seem like any of this is very well thought out. No. They were closer, so they both start sending ships. Argentina's gonna get there quicker, obviously. They sent clear indication that they were gonna invade the Falklands.

The endurance was a British ship, and Captain Barker of the endurance brought this news to London. There were only 68 Marines on the islands, Royal Marines, British Marines, didn't have great weapons, were really under, they were under weapon, under artillery, to under staff, they were just,

it was sort of those deals where they're like, what are we doing down here, guys, for a long time, I think, until this happened. Right. So, I mean, imagine being that, there was like 68 of them, I guess, just hanging out. Like 68, knowing that the Argentinians were coming, right, or thinking that they probably were.

I know, they knew it was on the way. Well, here's the thing. So back in London, Margaret Thatcher and her Tory government were not convinced. Like they, she said later on, I think her diaries got published about this or whatever, but in the days leading up to it, she was like, she could not believe

that Argentina would actually go through with an invasion because it was such a stupid thing to do, that she just couldn't believe it. And so that was combined with, eventually with some of her like military advisors saying, if they take these islands, there's no guarantee we're gonna get them back. And she realized that if she lost the Falkland Islands

to Argentina, that was it. She was never going to be reelected. And her government would basically just limp along until the next election. It would be a really bad look for her. So she had to win these back, but at the same time, she couldn't just send the Royal Navy down there

for nothing. So she had to make this decision about what to do, whether to be proactive or reactive. And she ultimately waited and was reactive. And by the time she reacted, she was working with the knowledge that it wasn't guaranteed that now that they have invaded, that Great Britain would be able to take it back.

That's right. And you say take it back, we haven't even mentioned the fact that Argentina took it to begin with. Yeah, I think that was implied. April 2nd, 1982, about three o'clock in the morning, their tactical dive team came aboard the island. They approached the capital.

They under cover of darkness fired on the barracks, which they, because the Royal Marines knew this was coming. So they had abandoned the barracks and were sort of falling back essentially toward the government house, which is where they were going to hold up on their final stand. Right.

Argentinians had a lot more people. They had amphibious assault vehicles. And eventually the Brits retired to the government house and said, we give up, we surrender. 10 a.m., the Union Jack was replaced by the Argentinian flag. And Argentina broke their arms patting themselves on the back.

They lost five people, they killed one, I'm sorry, zero British soldiers. And we're like, all right, we did it. That was super easy, just like we thought. And so the Argentinians were thinking, well, you know, that was very easy. The British are clearly disinterested in the Falklands. They're probably just going to say,

well, you guys captured at Farron Square. We'll get our people out of there. They're your islands now. But this is not at all what happened. In fact, the British did not take very kindly to this. And I propose we take a break and talk about the actual Falkland war after this. Let's do it.

["Stuff You Should Know"] Stuff you should know. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back

into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,

about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles, stuff you should know. OK, so where we left off was Argentina had taken the Falklands with very little effort.

And then Margaret Thatcher realized what was going on in a big way. And she went, noddle my watch. That was dead on. So once Britain said, you know what, we're going to fight back here, and we're going to take these islands back, it became the real deal thing.

And we'll talk about, in the end, their casualties numbered at about 1,000 on both sides. So it still wasn't the biggest conflict, but it was a real conflict. No, it really was. And Britain was in this weird position. Argentina was in a weird position in that they were fighting a pretty substantial military.

But Britain was in a weird position in that they knew that if they overshowed force, if they just pounded the Argentinians into dust, other countries might actually enter the war on the side of Argentina. So they had to get these islands back without just using all of their might against Argentina. Yeah, and with also saying, we're not

going to come after you, Argentina, in Argentina. Supposedly, they explicitly said that, huh? Yeah, I mean, this is such a weird war and a weird time. It really was. It was a weird war. But yeah, a lot of people just kind of joke, like, oh, the British invaded the Falklands. What an overblown move.

But at the same time, it was like, Thatcher's Prime Ministry was on the line. And also, the idea that these were British subjects who were being occupied, make no mistake about it. Yeah, we can't forget about them. If you were living on the Falklands and you left your house, you were living under Argentinian occupation,

they changed what side of the road you're supposed to drive on. Which is crazy. A little bit. You had to, oh, by the way, one of these days, we're going to have to do a short stuff on Dagen H. It was in either Sweden or, I think, Sweden. It was the day that they changed from one side of the road

to the other for driving. Oh, boy, that was fun. Around the country, yes, it was just a big mess. So we'll talk about it sometime. But you also had to carry a white flag around with you to basically let them know you were noncombatant. And even still, even under those conditions, I think at least three Falkland Islanders

were killed during this war. So it was a big deal. And there were reasons for the British to invade. And again, you can really make the case that Argentinians were the aggressors in this situation. Yeah, so April 6, the Great Britain finally puts together a war cabinet. They name their operation Operation Corporate.

And they send down a couple of aircraft carriers, about 127 ships. They send down fighter jets. There's helicopters. While they're doing this, because like we mentioned, it takes a long time to get down there on an aircraft carrier. They were still hoping to work this out. Like France got involved, and they said, you know what?

We're not going to sell arms to Argentina anymore. They're flying our fighter jets, by the way. So here's some help in defeating them. If you want a little inside scoop, there's a little button on the back as long as you push it. And they won't be able to drop bombs. Yes, their wings will fold in. Reagan got involved.

He called up a galtieri specifically, said let's try and work it out peacefully. I'm going to send Al Haig down there. And they said, nope, we don't want your help, Reagan. So Britain said, oh, you don't want Ronald Reagan's help? Then screw you, it's on. Yeah. And so it was on, from that point on,

the British were like, all right, well then it's just war is what we're going to do. So their two aircraft carriers showed up. And since they only had two, they had a limited number of jets. But it turns out that their jets were mostly useful in keeping the Argentinian fighter jets away from bombing and missile attacks on the ships,

but weren't successful in every case. Like, as funny as it seems, you know, like the British were fighting the Argentinians, Argentina had some successes definitely in this war too. It wasn't just totally lopsided. Yeah, I mean, Britain, it all really, really started on April 25th. And kind of one of the first things that Britain did

was go after one of their submarines, the Santa Fe. Damaged that one pretty heavily. That submarine made it to the South Georgia Island, but the crew jumped off and basically retired that submarine on the spot. Royal Marines were getting reinforced the whole time. And this was really what made the biggest difference is Britain had complete control

of the naval side of things. Right, yeah, just immediately the Argentinians figured out like, oh, we aren't gonna be able to do much with our Navy. But again, we've got some fighter jets and, you know, they're French and they work pretty good as long as you don't press that one button. And they used them to good effect in that they would fly decoy flights

to get the British jets to come chase them. And then the real attack jets would come in and actually attack like a ship or maybe the mainland or something like that. Yeah, that worked maybe a couple of times. Sure, they also had some, they also had surface to air missiles that they used fairly well,

although they apparently accidentally shot down one of their planes at least once. The point of all this, the upshot is that despite, you know, the British superiority and just about every single way, Argentina did have some success and they managed to stave off the British retaking the Falklands,

which spoiler alert, the British retook the Falklands. For, you know, this whole conflict lasted 74 days. Yeah, they sunk a destroyer. I think they sunk some other ships. The big, one of the big turning points was when on May 2nd, the General Belgrano, which was an Argentinian cruiser, was destroyed by the HMS Conqueror.

And that was like 323 men were killed basically in that attack, and that was, you know, not half, but 40% of the losses of the whole war. Right, and most of... 30%. Most of Argentina's losses came from the sinking of that one ship. Yeah.

And that was viewed as fairly grotesque by a lot of people, by the international community really, because remember, England needed to, sorry, Great Britain needed to basically show themselves as showing restraint. This was not necessarily a show of restraint. The Argentinian said that this was not inside of the no-go zone where their ship wasn't supposed to be,

that it had been tracked down by the British and sunk, that they could have just disabled it, but they purposefully sunk it. And that, you know, it killed 323 Argentinians in one shot, which is just bad press for anybody. It makes England look like an overblown bully. And, you know, they died in pretty terrible ways. Like a lot of them drowned, but a lot of them froze

in lifeboats, because again, we're not that far away from Antarctica. Yeah, it's not warm. And it took like 24 hours, I think, for them to be rescued. So a lot of people froze to death in lifeboats, waiting to be rescued because they were sunk by this British ship rather than just having their ship disabled.

Yeah, Ed made a nice little Jaws reference in this, too. Did you catch that? I didn't. May the 2nd, 1982, 1,095 men went into the water, 772 come out, the sea took the rest. I got it now. That was Hooper, right?

Yeah, yeah, of course. The other big turning point came, of course, this is all like sinking of ships and naval battles. What they needed to do was take the main town. And on May 21st, the British gained a very good foothold when they made a landing on East Falkland and started advancing towards Stanley, which was not Stanley the guy that was just there

cleaning up, but Stanley the town. Stanley the measuring tape. That's right. And they basically, Argentinians would fight till they ran out of ammo, then they would get captured and the Brits would just move slowly. I think from May 21st to June 11th, they finally assaulted Stanley.

And on June 14th, no, poor Stanley. On June 14th, so just three days after they finally got to Stanley, they surrendered, Argentina did. Yeah, but note here that it was May 21st that the British finally landed on East Falkland and June 13th that they managed to take control of Stanley. Yeah, three weeks. It was three weeks and the Argentinians managed

to hold them off for that long. But this is almost like, you know, those movies, like the huge sweeping epic comedies, like it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world. Sure. Where there's like 10 different things going on at once and the scene just kind of visits, you know, each person. In one scene, there was a Brigadier General named

Tony Wilson, who is I guess on hiatus from running factory records at the time. He was trying to get to Fitzroy, which was a smaller town, not as big as Stanley, but it was a town. And he decided to get some intel where the Argentinians would. He just looked up the number

from one of the Fitzroy residents, went to a phone booth and called and said, hey, are the Argentinians around today? And the residents said, no, they're not. Maybe today would be a good day for you guys to come. And that's how they overtook Fitzroy. And so little by little, they started taking like the East Falklands until like you said,

they finally took Stanley. Amazing. And one other thing, one of the overlooked unsung groups of soldiers who helped really retake Stanley are the Gurkhas. Have you heard about them? I have not. Holy cow, dude. They're widely considered to be the toughest soldiers

in the world. Toughest mother Gurkhas on the planet? Exactly. They are from Nepal. They're the Nepalese, like basically Nepalese special forces and they're known for carrying these Kukri knives, K-U-K-R-I knives. I'm sure I said that incorrectly.

And by the way, apparently everyone else in the world, except for you and I, knows how to pronounce the national language of the Philippines correctly. Yeah, we did a listener mail about that, but they're just still pouring in. Yeah. So these knives are just really fierce looking. And they're like, these guys are basically just going

from like observation station to observation station. I guess just taking out Argentinian guys with their knives and helping reestablish this British foothold on the East Falklands. Check them out the Gurkhas, you'll like them I think. Like the Gurkhas? Sure. So in the end, like we said, they surrendered on June 14th.

We should point out that there was a neutral sea zone that had hospital ships on both sides and throughout this whole thing, which got really acrimonious, sounds silly to say about a war, but it was one of the more acrimonious wars because it was small and they were really mad at each other. But these hospital ships helped each other out.

They cooperated, they transferred patients, which says a lot about how things were. Yeah, it was still civil, even though acrimonious, right? That's right. Argentina in the end suffered 649 deaths, which was like we said, about half of those actually, almost exactly half, came from that ship sinking. Yeah.

Britain lost 255 and those three poor Kelpers, and I'm sorry if that's offensive. I think, yeah, I don't know if it is, if you're a nuclear. Let's just call them Falkland civilians. Yeah, they were killed. Stanleyites. Yes, Stanley and the Antonians.

So it did not work out well for Argentina. It really backfired, that was pretty humiliating defeat. The NRP was defeated in 1983 and free election started, so that's a good thing. Yeah, this was actually a huge impetus for them losing control of power. The Argentina was defeated and kind of humiliated actually, and this military government, since this was like,

Ed put it like a Hail Mary, a last-ditch effort to kind of retain power. They lost the Falklands, so they lost their power on Argentina. It's always good anytime a military dictatorship loses control of a nation. Sure. Yeah.

So one of the things, Chuck, is still to this day, the Falklands are in dispute by Argentina. And I was asking you if you came up with this idea because of stuff that's been going on lately, but ever since, I think 2009, Argentina made a claim at the UN to extend its territorial waters from 200 nautical miles offshore to 350.

Well, 350 nautical miles off of Argentina completely envelops the Falkland Islands, the South Georgia Island, and the Sandwich Islands. This is not something that the British are okay with. So much so that one of the revelations from the Snowden whistleblower files was that the British had engaged in disinformation campaigns and propaganda campaigns,

secret ones, to change public opinion in Argentina about the Falklands sovereignty and them being just thoroughly British and Argentina has no claim on it. And the reason why, and I was looking into this, I'm like, is another war there possible? Who knows? The reason why is because in 2010,

they found a massive oil deposit that is in the territorial waters of the Falklands. So if Argentina's waters extend to envelop the Falklands, that's their oil deposit. The UK said, no, no, that's our oil deposit because that's in the Falkland waters. And I think in 2016, the UN commission ruled in favor of Argentina, even though they said,

well, we don't really have any teeth, it's just our opinion that Argentina has a legitimate claim on this. And the UK said, we're not going to be paying attention to that. Wow. Yeah, so it's still continuing today. And even more than just being like a source

of national pride, now it's a source of national oil. So who knows what will happen in the coming years over that. Geez. Plus when the eldritch gods wake up, you know. Yeah, well, then we're all doomed. So you got anything else about the Falklands? Got nothing else.

And now I get it. Yep, me too, Chuck, me too. So thanks for that. If you want to know more about the Falklands, well, you can start reading up on it. There's plenty of stuff to be read. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this from a teacher who is grounded right

now because of the coronavirus and wants a little help from us. OK. Hey, guys, my name is Marissa Stratton. I'm a sixth grade teacher from Springfield, Illinois. Like most of the country, our school is currently shut down. I'm wondering if you could help me. With the suggestion for my students, I'm fairly new to the podcast world.

I listen to and love your podcast. I would love to recommend it to my students, but I know some topics would be inappropriate for 11-year-olds. You got that right. It's like pumping the island? I was about to say any of our history shows. Here is where your help would be greatly appreciated. You have any specific episodes in mind

that would be great for 11 and 12-year-olds, or do you have suggestions of other podcasts that middle schoolers might enjoy? I've read a lot of articles, but I'm just overwhelmed. Being out of the classroom is very stressful, and I want to make sure I'm recommending popularity and quality to my students, not just popularity. That is from Marissa Stratton.

So I thought about this. I didn't make a specific list, but I was just about to say most of our history shows are pretty appropriate. Wouldn't you agree? I would like to think that all of our stuff is in the wheelhouse of 11 and 12-year-olds, at least the same level of humor.

I think so. I mean, it's pretty easy when you look through the 1,200-plus episodes. There's a lot of science and history and stuff like that. I think it's pretty clear the ones to avoid. If you see things on magic mushrooms or marijuana grow farms or murder stories, stuff like that, you may want to avoid.

But aside from that, it's pretty self-explanatory. A few dumb, blue jokes aside from us, they're pretty clean. For sure. And a lot of them probably fly over an 11-year-old's head. Yeah, but that's for her to decide. They may want to learn about the Mindlebrot set. So no, no, no. I mean, our jokes.

Our jokes might fly over the 11-year-old's head. Gotcha. That's true. So yeah, I guess I would recommend maybe listening to them once before sharing them. But yeah, we pride ourselves in being pretty family friendly. Agreed. OK, that was Ms. Stratton?

Correct. Well, thanks a lot, Ms. Stratton, and hello to your class who are being taught virtually, I'm guessing, right now. We're the teachers now. Yeah, exactly. Just leave it to us, America and world. We got this. If you want to get in touch with us like Ms. Stratton did,

please feel free to. You can send us an email. Wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app.

Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.