The bulk of the nation was mainly a British protectorate from 1884 to 1957, known as British Somaliland. The nation achieved its' independence from Britain in April 1957, and suffered moderate internal instability until the mid-1980s. In 1962, France sold their Afar territory to the nation, enlarging Somaliland to its current borders and unknowingly creating the tensions that would trigger the Mandeb War eight years later.