Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute Sovereignty over the Falkland Islands () is disputed by Argentina and the United Kingdom. The British claim to sovereignty dates from 1690, and the United Kingdom has exercised "de facto" sovereignty over the archipelago almost continuously since 1833. Argentina has long disputed this claim, having been in control of the islands for a few years prior to 1833. The dispute escalated in 1982, when Argentina invaded the islands, precipitating the Falklands War. Contemporary Falkland Islanders overwhelmingly prefer to remain British. They gained full British citizenship with the British Nationality (Falkland Islands) Act 1983, after British victory
History of the Falkland Islands the Ice Age, the Falkland Islands may have been joined to the mainland of South America. While Amerindians from Patagonia could have visited the Falklands, The presence of the warrah, "Dusicyon australis", has often been cited as evidence of pre-European occupation of the islands. However, in 2009, this hypothesis was disproved when DNA analysis identified the Falkland Island wolf's closest living relative as the maned wolf ("Chrysocyon brachyurus") – an unusually long-legged, fox-like South American canid, from which it separated about 6.7 million years ago. It would seem that the lineages of the maned wolf and the Falkland Islands wolf