In the summer of 1969, the nations of Honduras and El Salvador went to war.

Tragically, nations do go to war sometimes, so this in and of itself isn't unusual.

However, the spark which ignited this war was unlike any other in world history.

It had to do with a qualifying match for the 1970 FIFA World Cup.

Learn more about the football war, its causes and its resolution on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. The Football War,

War, also known as the soccer war for obvious reasons, may have been sparked by a

football match, but there was a lot more to it. A football match wasn't so much the cause of the war as it was the straw

that broke the camel's back. There were a host of problems between the two

countries which had been festering well before their 1969 World Cup qualifier.

The problem really started over two centuries ago

when Honduras and El Salvador were still Spanish colonies.

There were six pockets of land and two islands in the Gulf of Fonseca that were awarded to El Salvador that Honduras claimed.

The Gulf of Fonseca is the only access that Honduras has to the Pacific Ocean and El Salvador was able to block their access.

The total amount of land in question was only 436 square kilometers, which wasn't

inconsequential given the size of the two countries. However, if a land dispute was the only problem between the two countries, it probably wouldn't have been enough to go to war in 1969.

The border had been an issue for ages, so it definitely was a a contributing factor but not the cause of the war.

The other major problem between the two countries had to do with immigration and land reform.

Despite being five times larger an area, Honduras had a much smaller population.

In 1969, El Salvador had a population of 3.7 million, and Honduras had 2.6 million people. Starting in the early 20th century, the

differences in population density resulted in Salvadorans migrating to

Honduras for land. By 1969, 300,000 Salvadorans were living in Honduras

compromising a full 20% of the population. If you remember back to my episode on Banana

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