Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Were there inhabitants on the Falkland Islands when they were discovered?
The Falkland Islands, a cluster of 780 islands off the eastern coast of Argentina, had no indigenous population when the British arrived to explore the islands in 1690. Continuous settlement dates only to 1833, when British forces removed 26 Argentinian soldiers from the islands and claimed the islands for the British. In 1845, the Capital city of Stanley, located on East Falkland, was established. Argentina also has a claim to the islands, and in 1982, Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands. The British moved to defend the British control of the Islands, with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher calling the Islanders "of British tradition and stock". In under three months, nearly a thousand people were killed, and over 2,000 were injured. British-Argentinian tension regarding claim to the Islands still exists, but as over 98% of Islanders voted to remain under British sovereignty in the last election, the identity of the island overall is overwhelmingly British. This history has implications for the linguistic features of Falkland Islands English, which is similar to British English but distinct in some vocabulary and phonology.
The history of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land. The first European explorer to sight New Zealand was Dutch navigator Abel Tasman on 13 December 1642. The Dutch were also the first non-natives to explore and chart New Zealand's coastline. Captain James Cook, who reached New Zealand in October 1769 on the first of his three voyages, was the first European explorer to circumnavigate and map New Zealand. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and various Māori chiefs, bringing New Zealand into the British Empire and giving Māori the same rights as British subjects. There was extensive British settlement throughout the rest of the century and into the early part of the next century. War and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand's land passing from Māori to Pākehā (European) ownership, and most Māori subsequently became impoverished.
The History of New Zealand dates back to at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land. The first European explorer, the Dutch Abel Tasman, came to New Zealand in 1642. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and various Māori chiefs, bringing New Zealand into the British Empire and giving Māori equal rights with British citizens. There was extensive European and some Asian settlement throughout the rest of the century. War and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand's land passing from Māori to European ownership, and most Māori subsequently became impoverished.
From the 1790s, New Zealand was visited by British, French and American whaling, sealing and trading ships. Their crews traded European goods with the indigenous Māori. The first settlers to New Zealand were mainly from Australia, many of them ex-convicts or escaped convicts. Sailors, explorers and traders from Australia and other parts of Europe also settled.
Sometime between 1250 and 1300, Polynesians settled in the islands that later were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand. In 1840, representatives of the United Kingdom and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire and in 1907 it became a dominion; it gained full statutory independence in 1947 and the British monarch remained the head of state. Today, the majority of New Zealand's population of 4.9 million is of European descent; the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealand's culture is mainly derived from Māori and early British settlers, with recent broadening arising from increased immigration. The official languages are English, Māori, and NZ Sign Language, with English being very dominant.
In the Pacific Ocean, Jorge de Menezes (c. 1498–?), discovered Papua New Guinea. García Jofre de Loaísa (1490–1526), discovered the Marshall Islands. Explorations of the Americas began with the initial discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), who led a Castilian (Spanish) expedition across the Atlantic, discovering America. After the discovery of America by Columbus, a number of important expeditions were sent out to explore the Western Hemisphere. This included Juan Ponce de León (1474–1521), who discovered and mapped the coast of Florida; Vasco Núñez de Balboa (c. 1475–1519), who was the first European to view the Pacific Ocean from American shores (after crossing the Isthmus of Panama) confirming that America was a separate continent from Asia; Aleixo Garcia (14?–1527), who explored the territories of present-day southern Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia, crossing the Chaco and reaching the Andes (near Sucre).
Historian Alwyn Ruddock claimed to have found evidence that the navigator Giovanni Cabot ('John Cabot') who discovered North America in 1497 {received backing from the Italian community in London for his voyage to North America. In particular, she suggested he found a patron in the form of Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, an Augustinian friar who was also the deputy to the papal tax collector Adriano Castellesi. Ruddock suggested that it was Carbonariis, who certainly accompanied Cabot's 1498 expedition and who was on good terms with the King, who introduced the explorer to Henry VII for the discovery expedition. Beyond this, Ruddock claimed that Cabot received a loan from an Italian banking house in London 'to go and discover new lands'.
Martin Frobisher, licensed by Elizabeth I and backed by a group of merchant adventurers, sought gold in the New World and a northwest passage to the Orient. George Best accompanied Frobisher on all of his three voyages (in 1576, 1577 and 1578) and this work is the first account of them. It has two maps drawn by James Beare, Frobisher's principal surveyor, The rough outline map of the west of Europe, Groenland and "the supposed fyrmeland of America" wrongly convinced many people in England that the Northwest Passage had actually been discovered. But it was not until the late nineteenth century that the actual existence of a northwest passage was proved and only at the beginning of this century that the transit was made. Frobisher discovered Hudson Strait (which he named Mistaken Strait) and returned home with shiploads of fool's gold (iron pyrites) and mica, which finally served as road building material.
There is considerable archaeological discussion as to the route taken by the first colonisers. People appear to have arrived by sea during a period of glaciation, when New Guinea and Tasmania were joined to the continent. The journey still required sea travel however, making them amongst the world's earlier mariners. Scott Cane wrote in 2013 that the first wave may have been prompted by the eruption of Mount Toba. If they arrived around 70,000 years ago, they could have crossed the water from Timor, when the sea level was low; but if they came later, around 50,000 years ago, a more likely route would be through the Moluccas to New Guinea. Given that the likely landfall regions have been under around 50 metres of water for the last 15,000 years, it is unlikely that the timing will ever be established with certainty.
A memorial to FitzRoy is erected atop a metamorphic outcrop beside the Bahia Wulaia dome middens on Isla Navarino, in the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego archipelago, South America. It was presented in his bicentenary (2005) and commemorates his 23 January 1833 landing on Wulaia Cove. Another memorial, presented also in FitzRoy's bicentenary, commemorates his Cape Horn landing on 19 April 1830.
Cook's first expedition carried botanist Joseph Banks, for whom a great many Australian geographical features and the genus Banksia and a number of plant species e.g. Grevillea banksii were named. The reports of Cook and Banks in conjunction with the loss of England's penal colonies in America after they gained independence and growing concern over French activity in the Pacific, encouraged the foundation by the British of a colony at Botany Bay. The First Fleet led by Captain Arthur Phillip left England on 13 May 1787 to found a penal colony in Australia. It reached Botany Bay in mid-January 1788. Phillip had decided to move the settlement to Sydney Cove in Port Jackson, but the British ships were unable to leave Botany Bay until 26 January because of a tremendous gale.
Leif Erikson or Leif Ericson ( 970 – c. 1020) was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He was the first known European to have set foot on continental North America (excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada. Later archaeological evidence suggests that Vinland may have been the areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and that the L'Anse aux Meadows site was a ship repair station.
The precise date at which the first inhabitants of New Zealand reached Otago and the extreme south (known to later Māori as "Murihiku") remains uncertain. Māori descend from a race of Polynesian sea-wanderers who, moved from East Asia and south-east Asia to the islands of the Pacific. Tradition tells of their further journeyings from Hawaiki to New Zealand, and some commentators have identified this homeland as Havai'i, an island in the Society Group. Overpopulation, scarcity of food and civil war forced many of them to migrate once more, and New Zealand became their new home. Māori settled New Zealand between AD 1280–1320. They quickly learnt to hunt the numerous species of moa and seals in New Zealand and settled across the North and South islands in less than a few decades. There is a change in the pollen record from inland Otago from 600 years ago from a forest to bracken flora. It has been inferred that this relates to fires being lit during Maori exploration.
What is known of the inhabitants of Florida after 1566 was recorded by European explorers and settlers. Juan Ponce de León is credited as the first European to have contact with Florida's indigenous people in 1513. Ponce de León met with hostility from tribes that may have been the Ais and the Tequesta before rounding Cape Sable to meet the Calusa, the largest and most powerful tribe in South Florida. Ponce de León found at least one of the Calusa fluent in Spanish. The explorer assumed the Spanish-speaker was from Hispaniola, but anthropologists have suggested that communication and trade between Calusa and native people in Cuba and the Florida Keys was common, or that Ponce de León was not the first Spaniard to make contact with the native people of Florida. During his second visit to South Florida, Ponce de León was killed by the Calusa, and the tribe gained a reputation for violence, causing future explorers to avoid them. In the more than 200 years the Calusa had relations with the Spanish, they were able to resist their attempts to missionize them.
In 1766 during his first voyage to the Pacific, Royal Navy captain James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. Seventeen years later, following the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the "First Fleet", under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the flag raised at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, and the British Crown Colony of New South Wales was formally promulgated on 7 February 1788. Further Crown Colonies were established in Van Diemen's Land (now known as Tasmania) in 1803; Swan River Colony (now known as Western Australia) in 1828; South Australia in 1836; Victoria in 1851; and Queensland in 1859. The six colonies federated in 1901 and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed as a Dominion of the British Empire.
The few men who continued the journey with Balboa entered the mountain range along the Chucunaque River the next day. According to information from the natives, one could see the South Sea from the summit of this range. Balboa went ahead and, before noon that day, September 25, he reached the summit and saw, far away in the horizon, the waters of the undiscovered sea. The emotions were such that the others eagerly joined in to show their joy at Balboa's discovery. Andrés de Vera, the expedition's chaplain, intoned the "Te Deum", while the men erected stone pyramids, and engraved crosses on the barks of trees with their swords, to mark the place where the discovery of the South Sea was made.
British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on the Discovery Expedition of 1901–04 was the first to attempt to find a route from the Antarctic coastline to the South Pole. Scott, accompanied by Ernest Shackleton and Edward Wilson, set out with the aim of travelling as far south as possible, and on 31 December 1902, reached 82°16′ S. Shackleton later returned to Antarctica as leader of the British Antarctic Expedition (Nimrod Expedition) in a bid to reach the Pole. On 9 January 1909, with three companions, he reached 88°23' S – from the Pole – before being forced to turn back.
The region of the Beagle Channel, explored by Robert FitzRoy in the 1830s, was one of the last to be colonized by Chile and Argentina. The cold weather, the long distances from other inhabited regions, and the shortage of transport and subsistence, kept it far from the governmental task.
Sir Richard Grenville, leader of Raleigh's expedition, founded the Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island off the coast of modern North Carolina in 1585. Among the ruins at the Roanoke site, archaeologists have discovered lumps of smelted copper and a goldsmith’s crucible attributed to Gans's work at the colony. Because the royal mining company failed to resupply colonists who were also becoming increasingly fearful of conflicts with the Native Americans, they accepted an offer from Sir Francis Drake in June 1586 to sail them to England. Each of the colonists, including Gans, left North America.
From the 8th to the 10th century, the wider Scandinavian region was the source of Vikings. The looting of the monastery at Lindisfarne in Northeast England in 793 by Norse people has long been regarded as the event which marked the beginning of the Viking Age. This age was characterised by expansion and emigration by Viking seafarers. They colonised, raided, and traded in all parts of Europe. Norwegian Viking explorers first discovered Iceland by accident in the 9th century when heading for the Faroe Islands, and eventually came across Vinland, known today as Newfoundland, in Canada. The Vikings from Norway were most active in the northern and western British Isles and eastern North America isles.
Montague Island lies in the Gulf of Alaska at the entrance to Prince William Sound, Alaska. The island has a land area of 790.88 km² (305.36 sq mi), making it the 26th largest island in the United States. As of the 2000 census, Montague did not have a permanent resident population, making it at that time the largest uninhabited island in the United States. Since then, the 2010 abandonment of the Coast Guard station on Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands, which at 344.7 square miles is larger than Montague Island, causes Attu to claim that title. Montague Island is well known among sport fishing out of the Seward port as it is referred to as 'The Land of the Giants'. In 2007 it produced a 350 lb halibut and many boats full of fish over 100 lbs. Montague Island was named by Captain James Cook in honor of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, one of his greatest supporters.
The Falklands Expedition occurred in late 1831 when the United States Navy warship USS "Lexington" was dispatched to investigate the plunder of two whalers at the small Argentine colony of Puerto Soledad. American forces discovered that the settlers were suffering from famine so they were evacuated in the "Lexington" to the mainland. The Argentine colony was then abandoned which left the islands unsettled and open for British acquisition. Historically, the Argentine government has disputed the rights to the islands with the United Kingdom and it culminated in the Falklands War of 1982.
The island was discovered in 1766 by the British navigator and accomplished military commander John MacBride during the first hydrographic survey of the Falklands archipelago carried out by his ship HMS "Jason" out of Port Egmont, the early British settlement situated on Saunders Island off the northwest coast of West Falkland. Of his new discoveries Capt. MacBride wrote unfavourably: "We found a mass of islands and broken lands, beaten by storms almost perpetual". His temperature records for the area were more agreeable though. In January and February the thermometer rose to , but no higher; in August, it once fell to , but was seldom lower than . As a result of that survey Weddell Island appeared on MacBride's chart of the Falklands, one of the most accurate for its time. Capt. James Cook, who surveyed and mapped South Georgia but did not visit the Falklands, based his 1777 chart of the islands on MacBride's one, inheriting some of its specific characteristics. For instance, both charts fail to show the secluded bay of Port Stephens, applying its name to present Port Albemarle instead.
During the 74-day occupation, 114 inhabitants of Goose Green, considered to be potential troublemakers, were imprisoned and 14 residents of Stanley were sent to Fox Bay East and placed under house arrest. The Argentine military evacuated 52 schoolchildren from Stanley and turned the playground of the school into a compound for drilling troops. The Argentine peso replaced the Falkland Islands pound and stamps were overfranked with an Islas Malvinas postcode.
Following the abandonment of the archipelago by the Spanish authorities in 1811, the only inhabitants of the islands were people who in their various capacities travelled back and forth, carried out a variety of commercial and shipping activities, sought refuge there, and through various efforts attempted to colonize the islands. Most numerous by far among them were the English and American sealers who had pursued their industry on the Falklands at least since the 1770s, as pointed out by US Secretary of State Edward Livingston. The average number of English and American sealing vessels operating in the area is estimated between 40 and 50 meaning that several hundred to 1,000 sealers were involved.