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The Spanish explorer Balboa was the first European to sight the Pacific from America in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached a new ocean. [8] He named it Mar del Sur (literally, "Sea of the South" or "South Sea") because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific.
Captain James Cook FRS (7 November [O.S. 27 October] 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, cartographer, and naval officer famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to New Zealand and Australia in particular.
With the help of the expedition's scientists, derisively called "clam diggers" and "bug catchers" by navy crew members, 280 islands, mostly in the Pacific, were explored, and over 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) of Oregon were mapped. Of no less importance, over 60,000 plant and bird specimens were collected.
The history of Hawaii began with the discovery and settlement of the Hawaiian Islands by Polynesian people between 940 and 1200 AD. [1] [2]The first recorded and sustained contact with Europeans occurred by chance when British explorer James Cook sighted the islands in January 1778 during his third voyage of exploration.
Magellan called the ocean Pacífico (or "Pacific" meaning, "peaceful") because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century. [25] Magellan stopped at one uninhabited Pacific island before stopping at Guam in March ...
1851 map of Pacific listing colonial names of individual islands. Since the beginning of the 19th century, Australia and the islands of the Pacific have been grouped by geographers into a region called Oceania. [17] [18] It is often used as a quasi-continent, with the Pacific Ocean being the defining characteristic. [19]
The Asian and Pacific Theatre of World War I was a conquest of German colonial possession in the Pacific Ocean and China. The most significant military action was the Siege of Tsingtao in what is now China, but smaller actions were also fought at Battle of Bita Paka and Siege of Toma in German New Guinea .
Hawaii was first discovered and settled by explorers from Tahiti or the Marquesas Islands. The date of the first settlements is a continuing debate. [ 23 ] Kirch 's textbooks on Hawaiian archeology date the first Polynesian settlements to about 300 C.E., although his more recent estimates are as late as 600. [ 23 ]