Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Maris Pacifici, more accurately named the Descriptio Maris Pacifici ("Description of the Pacific Ocean"), was the first dedicated map of the Pacific to be printed. It is considered an important advancement in cartography. This map was drawn by Abraham Ortelius in 1589, based upon a map of America from the same year that was drawn by Frans ...
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.
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]
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 ...
Pacific Ocean: December 29, 1859 Christmas Island and Malden Island were claimed under the Guano Islands Act. [4] Pacific Ocean: February 8, 1860 Texas created Greer County, claiming part of Indian Territory based on a different understanding from the federal government of which fork of the Red River was the border between the two. [230]
On his 1506 world map, Giovanni Contarini called the land later called America by Waldseemüller the Antipodes. [ 9 ] Waldseemüller drew upon the 1506 world map of Nicolaus de Caverio , where an inscription off the coast of vera cruz (America/Brazil) says: "The land called Vera Cruz was found by Pedro Álvares Cabral, a gentleman of the ...