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1513 Vasco Núñez de Balboa, "silent upon a peak in Darién", first sees what would become known as the Pacific Ocean.
1520 After navigating through the South America
n strait, three ships under the command of Portuguese
explorer Ferdinand Magellan
reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europe
ans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean
to the Pacific (the strait was later named the Strait of Magellan).
1610 Henry Hudson
sails into what it is now known as Hudson Bay, thinking he had made it through the Northwest Passage
and reached the Pacific Ocean.
1776 Captain James Cook
sets off from Plymouth
England on his third, and fatal, expedition to the Pacific Ocean.
1778 Third Pacific
expedition of Capt. James Cook
, with ships ''HMS Resolution'' and ''HMS Discovery'', first view O'ahu
then Kaua'i
in the Hawaiian Islands
, which he names the "Sandwich Islands."
1793 Alexander Mackenzie reaches the Pacific Ocean becoming the first Euro-American to complete a transcontinental crossing north of Mexico
1805 Lewis and Clark Expedition
arrived at the Pacific Ocean.
1806 After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase
and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" begin their journey home.
1846 ''The Oregon Spectator'' becomes the first newspaper
on the Pacific
coast of the United States
.
1855 The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic Ocean
and Pacific Ocean.
1878 Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld is the first one to navigate the Northern Sea Route, which is a shipping lane from the Atlantic Ocean
to the Pacific Ocean along the Siberian coast.
1935 The ''China Clipper'' takes off from Alameda, California in an attempt to deliver the first airmail cargo across the Pacific Ocean (the aircraft later reached its destination, Manila
, and delivered over 110,000 pieces of mail).
1945 High-altitude, west-to-east winds across the Pacific Ocean — discovered by the Japanese
in 1942 and by Americans
in 1944 — are dubbed the ''jet stream''.
1946 Nuclear testing
: In the first underwater test of the atomic bomb, the surplus USS ''Saratoga'' is sunk near Bikini Atoll
in the Pacific Ocean when the United States
detonates the "Baker Day" devi
1947 Thor Heyerdahl
's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101 day, 4,300 mile journey across the Pacific Ocean proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America
.
1952 Nuclear testing
: Operation Ivy - The United States
successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike", at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands
in the central Pacific Ocean, with a yield of 10.4 megatons.
1954 Nuclear testing
: Officials announce that an American hydrogen bomb test had been conducted on Bikini Atoll
in the Pacific Ocean.
1956 Nuclear testing
: In the Pacific Ocean, Bikini Atoll
is nearly obliterated by the first airborne explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
1960 Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, in the bathyscaphe ''USS Trieste'', break a depth record when they descend to the bottom of Challenger Deep, 35,820 feet (10,750 meters
) below sea level in the Pacific Ocean.
1969 Apollo program: The ''Apollo 12
'' spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon
.
1972 The Libertarian enclave Minerva on a platform in the South Pacific
, sponsored by the Phoenix Foundation, declares independence
. Soon neighboring Tonga
annexes the area and dismantles the platform.
1995 Steve Fossett
lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada
, becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon
.
2001 The Russian space station Mir
re-enters the atmosphere near Nadi, Fiji
, and falls into the Pacific Ocean.
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Timeline
