Who discovered the Pacific Ocean and in what year?

The Pacific Ocean - the largest on Earth, occupies one-third of the surface area of our planet. Its size is greater than the entire land - the continents and islands combined. Knowingly it is often called the Great Ocean. Strange it seems that he was opened only in the 16th century, and until then, his existence was not even suspected.

Who Discovered the Pacific

The discovery of a new ocean is associated with the name of the Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa. In the autumn of 1512, Balboa, then governor of the Spanish colony of Darien, went west from the coast of the Atlantic Ocean , accompanied by 192 people armed with spears and halberds, with a pack of dogs. They succeeded in crossing the isthmus connecting North America to the South, breaking through hard-to-reach forests, tropical marshes and rocky ridges.
On the way, they several times met Indians, determined not to let strangers on their land. Unlike the indigenous inhabitants of the islands of the West Indies, the locals did not intend to kneel before the Europeans, not being afraid to attack a large armed detachment in helmets and cuirasses. Therefore, by the end of the expedition, only 28 people remained from it.

But from the top of the next ridge they saw an endless water space. Entering the chest in the water, Balboa announced a new sea possession of the Spanish king. It began to be called the Southern Sea, because it lay to the south of the isthmus. This name was preserved for him almost until the end of the 18th century.
So, it seems clear who discovered the Pacific Ocean. In 1513, Europeans first saw it and called the Southern Sea. But this does not mean that they immediately began to explore the coast and sail along it.

Expedition Magellan and "Quiet Sea"

Who discovered the Pacific for European seafarers? We owe this to the organizer of the first round-the-world voyage to Fernand Magellan. It was his ships in November 1520 that first found themselves in an unknown ocean and crossed it. And just Magellan gave him the name El Mare Pacifico - Quiet Sea.

For a modern man who has heard about the storms raging in the Pacific, about waves the size of a ten-story house, about tropical typhoons, its name sounds somewhat strange. But Magellan during his expedition was just lucky with the weather. After the ships with great difficulty passed through a narrow and winding strait, later named after Magellan, they faced a vast water area, which until then had not been familiar to Europeans. At first the ships were going under an even fair wind. And then they found themselves in a zone of almost complete calm.

The ships moved along the boundless surface of the ocean. Supplies are long over, fresh water is faded. And the islands on the way were not suitable for landing on the shore. The team that lost people because of hunger and scurvy, cursed the "Quiet Sea" ...

But still the ocean was passed. And on April 21, 1521, Magellan himself was killed, having become involved in the internal strife of the local tribes. The way home had to lead his friend Sebastian Elcano.

So, Magellan with his companions - one who opened the Pacific Ocean and gave the reservoir the current name.

Heyerdahl's hypothesis about the settlement of Oceania

When we say who discovered the Pacific Ocean and in which year, we mean when he became known to Europeans. But the islands of Oceania have been inhabited for a long time. For their inhabitants, the Pacific Ocean is home, they did not need to open it. But where did their ancestors come from? Who of them discovered the Pacific about forty centuries ago?

On this account, there are different opinions. The famous Norwegian explorer and traveler Thor Heyerdahl believed that the settling of the islands occurred from the east, from South America. He claimed that the Indians could travel thousands of miles across the ocean, using sea currents and tailwinds. Heyerdahl himself proved the possibility of such trips in 1947, crossing the Pacific Ocean on a balsa raft of "Kon-Tiki", modeled on Indian rafts.

Opposite opinion

The Frenchman Eric Bishop followed a different point of view. He believed that it was not the Indians who sailed to the islands, but the Polynesians made trips to the shores of South America. At the same time, they still remain skilled seafarers, and this is not surprising. It was simply impossible to dispense with long travels, living in remote parts of the earth in the Great Ocean. And the language of local residents contains as many marine terms as no other in the world. It was the Polynesians, according to Bishop, who subsequently settled the islands off the western coast of the Pacific Ocean.

Currently, most scientists believe that the development of the now inhabited land in the Pacific Ocean was from the eastern coast of Asia to the west. And the Chinese junks could be the first not only in opening the islands in the ocean, but also in the discovery of America long before Columbus.

For the Russians, the Pacific Ocean was opened by Cossacks Ivan Moskvitin, who reached the coast of the Okhotsk Sea in 1639.