The Chagos Archipelago is a remote, mostly uninhabited, group of approximately 60 atolls scattered across the Indian Ocean. The largest of these, Diego Garcia, is home to one of the most secretive and strategically significant US military bases in the entire Indo-Pacific region. The base and the islands have a notorious past. After being settled by the French in the 18th Century, this highly dispersed group of islets was ceded to the British in 1810. Following the British excision of the Chagos Archipelago from the soon-to-be independent Mauritius and Seychelles in 1965 to create the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), the US and UK signed a bilateral agreement in 1966 to create a US military facility on Diego Garcia. Between 1965 and 1973, the British, backed by the US, forcibly displaced the Chagossians from the Archipelago, so that the military base could operate in upmost secrecy.