The Falklands War - 30 years on

Thirty years ago the Falkland Islands suddenly went from forgotten corner of what was left of the British Empire to a dramatic test of the UK's global power status.

The remote group of boggy, windswept islands in the South Atlantic, with 1,800 human inhabitants vastly outnumbered by sheep, became a battleground between Argentina's military junta and Margaret Thatcher.

Click on the image on the right to see more pictures from the war.

Simmering diplomatic tensions boiled over spring 1982 and Argentine forces invaded the islands they call the Malvinas.

In response, Britain launched its biggest naval operation since the Second World War, sending a task force of 27,000 personnel and more than 100 ships.

Lasting just 74 days, the Falklands War claimed the lives of more than 900.

But the conflict reasserted Britain's ability to rule the waves, and Mrs Thatcher considered it one of her greatest triumphs.

The roots of the 1982 war lay in Argentine military dictator General Leopoldo Galtieri's determination that the 150th anniversary of UK rule the following year should never be celebrated.

To Buenos Aires, it appeared that Britain had lost interest in the rocky islands. By the early 1980s, the Royal Navy's Falklands patrol ship HMS Endurance was scheduled for withdrawal and the new British Nationality Act had denied UK citizenship to many islanders.

Things came to a head when a group of Argentine scrap metal workers landed on British-controlled South Georgia, 810 miles east of the Falklands, on March 19 1982.

They hoisted Argentina's blue-and-white national flag, prompting an angry response from Falklands governor Rex Hunt.

The Argentine junta brought forward invasion plans, seizing the capital Stanley from a small garrison of Royal Marines on April 2.

Just three days later, a huge British naval task force, led by the aircraft carriers HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible with Harrier jump jets and Sea King helicopters on board, set sail from Portsmouth.

UK forces retook South Georgia on April 25 before launching the first attacks on the Falklands on May 1 in raids on Stanley airfield that involved an 8,000-mile round trip from Ascension Island.

The most controversial episode of the war came when HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano on May 2, killing nearly a third of the 1,093 crew members.

At the time, the Belgrano was outside the UK-imposed 200-mile exclusion zone around the Falklands. Two days later, HMS Sheffield was hit by an Argentine Exocet missile. Twenty sailors were killed in the attack.

More troops died in later attacks on UK ships, including HMS Ardent, HMS Coventry, HMS Glamorgan, the container ship Atlantic Conveyor, and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram.

The re-taking of the Falklands began overnight on May 20/21, when Royal Marines and soldiers from the Parachute Regiment spearheaded the biggest British amphibious assault since D-Day at San Carlos, involving 2,400 troops.

Over the following weeks, the UK forces "yomped'" across the landmine-strewn peat bogs and hills of the Falklands to reach Stanley.

At Goose Green and Darwin Hill on May 28/29, 450 British soldiers led by Lieutenant Colonel Herbert 'H' Jones of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment defeated 1,200 Argentines. Colonel 'H' was killed in a single-handed charge, an act that won him a posthumous Victoria Cross.

A second posthumous VC was awarded to Sergeant Ian McKay, who died single-handedly overpowering an enemy position in the battle for Mount Longdon on June 12.

The war ended two days later, on June 14, when British forces reached Stanley and Argentine General Mario Menendez surrendered. Troops celebrated by raising the British flags.