Bermuda, discovered in 1503 by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez, is mentioned in Legatio Babylonica, published in 1511 by Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, and had also been included on Spanish charts of that year.

Both Spanish and Portuguese ships have used the islands as a replenishment spot for fresh meat and water, but legends of spirits and devils, now thought to have stemmed only from the callings of raucous birds (most likely the Bermuda Petrel, or Cahow), and of perpetual, storm-wracked conditions (most early visitors arrived under such conditions), have kept them from attempting any permanent settlement on the Isle of Devils.

Bermúdez and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo had ventured to Bermuda in 1515 with the intention of leaving a breeding stock of hogs on the island as a future stock of fresh meat for passing ships.

However, the inclement weather had prevented them from landing.

Some years later, a Portuguese ship on the way home from San Domingo had wedged itself between two rocks on the reef.

The crew had tried to salvage as much as they could and spent the next four months building a new hull from Bermuda cedar to return to their initial departure point.

One of these stranded sailors is most likely the person who carved the initials "R" and "P", "1543" into Spanish Rock which still sits at "Spittal Pond".

The initials probably stood for "Rex Portugalia" and later were incorrectly attributed to the Spanish, leading to the misnaming of this rocky outcrop of Bermuda.

For the next several decades, the island is believed to have been visited frequently but not permanently settled.

The first two British colonies in Virginia having failed, a more determined effort is initiated by King James I of England, who grants a Royal Charter to The Virginia Company.

A flotilla of ships had left England in 1609 under the Company's Admiral, Sir George Somers, to relieve the colony of Jamestown, settled two years before.

Somers had had previous experience sailing with both Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.

The flotilla had been broken up by a storm, and the flagship, the Sea Venture, wrecked off Bermuda (as depicted on the territory's coat of arms), leaving the survivors in possession of a new territory.

(William Shakespeare's play The Tempest is thought to have been inspired by William Strachey's account of this shipwreck.)

The island had been claimed for the English Crown, and the charter of the Virginia Company was extended to include it.

Most of the survivors of the Sea Venture had carried on to Jamestown in 1610 aboard two Bermuda-built ships.

Among them was John Rolfe, who left a wife and child buried in Bermuda, but in Jamestown would marry Pocahontas, a daughter of Chief Powhatan.

Intentional settlement of Bermuda begins with the arrival of the Plough, in 1612.

St. George's, settled in this year and made Bermuda's first capital, is today the oldest continually inhabited English town in the Western Hemisphere.