1778 - Exploration, Colonization

Exploration, Colonization

Captain James Cook, Royal Navy, lands on the island of Kauai in January and names the islands discovered by Hawaii-Loa in about 450 A.D. after John Montagu, 4th earl of Sandwich, now 60 and first lord of the Admiralty (see Cook, 1776). Having stopped at Tonga and Tahiti en route from New Zealand, Cook leaves February 2, sails H.M.S. Resolution to the northeast, puts into Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island March 29, and charts the coast northward from Oregon, laying the basis for future British claims to the region (see Drake, 1579; Gray, 1791; Columbia River Valley, 1843). But by year's end Cook has become desperately ill, mentally as well as physically, and is given to fits of rage (see 1779).