Atlantic Ocean

ocean between Europe, Africa and the Americas

30 dated entries naming Atlantic Ocean, drawn from 25 separate years between 511 CE and 2024 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as Atlantic, Atlantic (ocean), North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Southern Atlantic Ocean in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

JSON Wikipedia article Wikidata Q97

6th century

511Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great assumes the regency over Amalaric, his grandson and future king of the Visigothic Kingdom - Theodoric now rules over territory stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Adriatic Sea.source

7th century

6641 May – A solar eclipse affects areas along a line from Central America, through eastern North America, the North Atlantic, Ireland, Great Britain and Germany.source

10th century

975December 21 – Caliph Al-Mu'izz dies in Egypt after a 22-year reign in which he has extended his realm from Sicily to the Atlantic. He is succeeded by his son Al-Aziz Billah as ruler of the Fatimid Caliphate.source

12th century

1181After a series of defeats, the Almohad fleet under the admiral Ahmad al-Siqilli, crushes the Portuguese navy and reasserts its control over the Atlantic Ocean.source

16th century

1505Portuguese explorer Gonçalo Álvares is the first to sight what will later be known as Gough Island in the South Atlantic.source
1520November 28 – After navigating through the strait at the southern end of South America, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean. Magellan thankful to find a peaceful sea after the dangerous trip through the strait, names the body of water "El Mar Pacifico" because of its pacifying waters. becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific (the strait is later named the Strait of Magellan).source

18th century

1705November 16 – An annular solar eclipse is visible in the southern Atlantic Ocean.source
1732March 3 – English Captain Charles Gough rediscovers Gough Island in the South Atlantic.source
17323 March – Captain Charles Gough rediscovers Gough Island in the South Atlantic.source
1778March 29 – April 26 British Captain James Cook explores Alaskan coast, seeking Northwest Passage back to the Atlantic. On the last of three voyages to the west coast, he travels as far north as the Bering Strait and claims Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island for the British. While there, he trades for sea otter pelts. On the way back to England his crew almost mutinied, desperately wanting to go back to the Pacific Northwest, after stopping in China and discovering how much sea otter pelts were worth.source
1783The border between Canada and the U.S. is accepted from the Atlantic Ocean to Lake of the Woods.source

19th century

1817July 4 – At Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins in the U.S. to link the Hudson River to Lake Erie, with the long-range goal of making the first navigable waterway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, and reducing the amount of time and costs for transporting goods westward past the Appalachian mountains.source
1833Royal William, formerly operating between Quebec and Halifax, becomes first steamship to cross Atlantic.source

20th century

191624 April–19 May – Voyage of the James Caird, an open boat journey from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands to South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean (800 nmi) undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions to obtain rescue for the main body of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (left under command of Frank Wild) following the loss of its ship Endurance.source
1917December 6 – WWI: U.S. Navy destroyer USS Jacob Jones is torpedoed and sunk in the Atlantic Ocean south west of the British Isles by German submarine SMU U-53, killing 66 crew in the first significant American naval loss of the war, the first ever U.S. destroyer loss to an enemy.source
1924June 5 – Ernst Alexanderson sends the first facsimile across the Atlantic Ocean, which goes to his father in Sweden.source
1928March 21 – Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.source
1928June 17 – Aviator Amelia Earhart starts her attempt to become the first woman to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean. Wilmer Stultz is the pilot.source
19393 September – British liner SS Athenia becomes the first civilian casualty of the war when she is torpedoed and sunk by GS U-30 in the eastern Atlantic. Of the 1,418 aboard, 117 are killed (98 passengers and 19 crew members).source
194121 February – First flight by a Royal Air Force flying boat through the "Donegal Corridor", neutral Republic of Ireland airspace between its base in Northern Ireland and the Atlantic Ocean, a concession secretly agreed by Éamon de Valera.source
194124 May — In the North Atlantic, the German battleship Bismarck sinks battlecruiser HMS Hood, killing all but 3 crewmen aboard the pride of the Royal Navy.source
1952April 11 – Pan Am Flight 526A, Douglas DC-4 Clipper Endeavor, suffers failure of two engines and ditches in rough seas 11.3 miles (18 km) northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico in the Atlantic Ocean, sinking in minutes; 52 of the 69 people on board die. After this accident the implementation of pre-flight safety demonstrations is recommended. The aircraft's wreckage will be discovered in 2026.source
1960July 21 – English navigator Francis Chichester wins the first Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race, arriving in New York aboard Gypsy Moth III having made a record solo Atlantic crossing in 40 days.source
1960August 16 – Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at an altitude of about 102,800 ft. Kittinger sets world records for: high-altitude jump; free-fall by falling 16.0 miles (25.7 kilometers) before opening his parachute; first space dive, and fastest speed attained by a human being without mechanical or chemical assistance, about 982 k.p.h (614 m.p.h.). Kittinger survives more or less uninjured. He is also the first man to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a gas balloon, and the first man fully to witness the spherical curvature of the Earth. (Felix Baumgartner breaks his space diving record in 2012.)source
1962July 23 – Telstar relays the first live trans-Atlantic television signal.source
1962September 23 – Flying Tiger Line Flight 923, a Lockheed L-1049H Super Constellation registered as N6923C, ditched into the Atlantic Ocean killing 28 occupants out of 76 on board. The remaining 48 were rescued six hours later.source
197017 May – Thor Heyerdahl and his crew sets sail from Morocco towards Latin America aboard Ra II, a papyrus boat modeled after ancient Egyptian sailing vessels, in an attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean and prove his theory that the ancient Egyptians sailed to America in ancient times.source
1998September 25 – Benoit Lecomte finishes his 72-day swim across the Atlantic Ocean, but uncertainty over the exact route and distance covered prevent him from being recognized as the first person to swim across the Atlantic.source

21st century

2017November 15 – The Argentinian submarine ARA San Juan suddenly vanished with 44 crew members on board whilst on a routine patrol in the South Atlantic. It would be found one year later wrecked 907 m below the Atlantic Ocean.source
2024October 7 – Hurricane Milton becomes the fourth most intense hurricane in the Atlantic Basin, and the most intense storm in the Gulf of Mexico tying with Hurricane Rita in 2005. Milton is also the first hurricane to reach a pressure below 900 millibars in nearly 20 years.source