João da Nova, after turning the Cape…
May 1502 CE
João da Nova, after turning the Cape of Good Hope, sails into the south Atlantic Ocean and on May 3, 1502, discovers the uninhabited volcanic island of Saint Helena along the way.
It is believed to be named after saintly empress of Constantinople.
Another theory holds that the island found by da Nova was actually Tristan da Cunha, twenty-four hundred and thirty kilometers (fifteen hundred and ten miles) to the south, and that Saint Helena was discovered by some of the ships attached to the squadron of Estêvão da Gama expedition on July 30, 1503 (as reported in the account of clerk Thomé Lopes).
However, a paper published in 2015 reviewed the discovery date and dismissed the August 18 date as too late for da Nova to make a discovery and then return to Lisbon by September 11, 1502, whether he sailed from St Helena or Tristan da Cunha.
It demonstrates the May 21 date is probably a Protestant rather than Catholic or Orthodox feast-day, first quoted in 1596 by Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, who was probably mistaken because the island was discovered several decades before the Reformation and start of Protestantism.
The alternative discovery date of May 3, the Catholic feast-day for the finding of the True Cross by Saint Helena in Jerusalem, quoted by Odoardo Duarte Lopes and Sir Thomas Herbert is suggested as being historically more credible.
Legendarily, Nova anchors on the western side of the mountainous island and builds a timber chapel on the location of what will become future Jamestown.
Although Saint Helena will become a routine staging post on future India runs, the island's existence and location will remain a Portuguese secret for the next eighty years (until stumbled upon by English captain Sir Thomas Cavendish in 1588).
Locations
Groups
Topics
Regions
South Atlantic
View →Subregions
