The ARA General Belgrano sailed on its last voyage from Ushuaia on 26 April 1982. The ship (formerly USS Phoenix) was a Brooklyn-class WW II era light cruiser that served in the Argentinian Navy from 1951 until it was sunk on 2 May 1982 by torpedoes from the HMS Conqueror. Its sinking cost the lives of 323 men, roughly half of the Argentinian deaths in the war. Even though it (and all other Argentinian naval ships) had been ordered the day before to launch a "massive attack" on the British fleet, there is some controversy over the sinking since it took place just outside the 200-mile total exclusion zone around the Falklands Islands.
The ending of the episode, ends with Hammond, Clarkson, and May running out of a barn and then getting shot at because of the incident with the number plate that referred to the Falklands war which is the same ending as the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.