General Galtieri's angry former military colleagues wanted him executed by firing squad.

ECONOMIST: Leopoldo Galtieri | The

Three days later General Galtieri was awakened from a nap and, clad only in his underwear, told that he was no longer president.

ECONOMIST: Leopoldo Galtieri | The

General Galtieri sent thousands of troops to bolster his initial force, but the army was mostly made up of poorly-trained, poorly-equipped conscripts, used to spreading fear among demonstrating students, but no match for British professionals.

ECONOMIST: Leopoldo Galtieri | The

But by then the head of Argentina's military Junta, General Leopold Galtieri had resigned.

BBC: Fight for the Falklands: Twenty years on

Despite all the disputes over the islands, historians are agreed that the fateful decision to invade in 1982 made by Argentina's then-leader General Leopoldo Galtieri was an attempt to gain popular support for a military dictatorship that, by the early 1980s, was morally and economically bankrupt.

BBC: How Argentines feel about the Falkland Islands dispute