IV.

History

John Davis, an English navigator and explorer, may have been the first European to sight the Falklands, in 1592. In 1600 a Dutch navigator, Sebald Van Weert, visited the islands and called them the Sebald Islands, a name that still appears on some Dutch maps. Captain John Strong, an Englishman, navigated the sound between East and West Falkland in 1690 and named it Falkland Sound after Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland. The English name for the islands was then taken from that of the sound. In 1764 French colonists from St-Malo (hence the name Malvinas) established a settlement on East Falkland, and the following year the British settled on West Falkland. In 1770 Spain bought out the French, and in 1774 the British left the islands. In 1816 Argentina overthrew Spanish rule and in 1820 claimed sovereignty of the islands. But in 1833 Great Britain took control of the islands. Argentina continued to claim the islands, however.

Negotiations to settle the sovereignty dispute began in the mid-1960s at the United Nations. The talks were still in progress in April 1982, when Argentine forces invaded and occupied the islands for about ten weeks in an attempt to settle the issue by force. They were defeated by a British task force and formally surrendered on June 14. Argentina continued to claim the islands; the British government refused to participate in further negotiations, but the two nations resumed diplomatic relations in 1990.