On Friday 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded the British overseas territory of the Falkland Islands.
It had claimed sovereignty over the islands for many years. The country’s ruling military junta did not believe that Britain would attempt to regain the islands by force.
The ruling military junta was wrong.
Britain, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, assembled warships, refitted merchant ships and sent a task force 8,000 miles (12,900 km) across the globe to the South Atlantic.
Over the next 10 weeks, 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders were killed.
Forty years on, Tamsin McLeod, an islander who grew up in the shadow of the conflict and now lives in London, tells the BBC what her homeland means to her – and how the island families coped with their peaceful lives being thrust into the arena of war.
