Military history of Iceland called the Icelandic Cod Wars (Icelandic: "Þorskastríðin", "the cod war", or "Landhelgisstríðin", "the war for the territorial waters"), were a series of three confrontations from the 1950s to the 1970s between the United Kingdom and Iceland over fishing rights in the North Atlantic. The First Cod War lasted from 1 September until 12 November 1958. It began as soon as a new Icelandic law that expanded the Icelandic fishery zone from , came into force at midnight of 1 September. After a number of rammings and a few shots fired between the Royal Navy and Icelandic patrol boats, Britain and
Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery with these new statistics brought to light no changes were made in regards to the allotted yearly catch of cod. With only a limited knowledge of cod biology, scientists predicted that the population of the species would rebound from its low point in 1975 and when Canada extended its fishing boundaries in 1976, fish mortality decreased immediately. This was not due to a rise in cod stocks, it was because foreign trawlers could no longer fish the waters. Therefore, when Fisheries and Oceans set quotas, they overestimated the total stock, and increased the total allowable catch. In 1992, John Crosbie,