Maluku Islands
archipelago in eastern Indonesia, also called the Spice Islands
12 dated entries naming Maluku Islands, drawn from 12 separate years between 701 CE and 1977 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 Molucca, Moluccas, Spice Islands in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.
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8th century
16th century
- 1512Francisco Serrão reaches the Moluccas.source
- 1518March 22 – King Charles of Spain gives his approval for the Magellan expedition, initially for the purpose of finding a westward route from Spain to the "Spice Islands" (now the Maluku Islands in Indonesia), to avoid the more frequently-used eastward route around Africa. Veteran seaman Ferdinand Magellan and navigator Rui Faleiro, both of Portugal, had turned to Spain to fund the expedition after being refused by King Manuel of Portugal. The voyage proves to be further than expected and becomes the first to sail around the world.source
- 1519September 20 – Ferdinand Magellan departs from Spain with a fleet of five ships and a crew of 270 men, to sail westbound to the Spice Islands.source
- 1523February 15 – Construction of Fort Kastela by Portuguese invaders, on what is now the island of Ternate in Indonesia, is completed as Portugal claims the Spice Islands (now the Maluku Islands).source
- 1528October 3 – Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón arrives in the Maluku Islands.source
- 1529April 22 – The Treaty of Zaragoza divides the eastern hemisphere between the Spanish and Portuguese empires, stipulating that the dividing line should lie 297.5 leagues or 17° east of the Moluccas.source
- 1536June 26 – Spanish navigator Andrés de Urdaneta and a few companions arrive in Lisbon from the Maluku Islands, completing a westward circumnavigation which began with the Loaísa expedition of 1525.source
17th century
- 1601April 22 – The first expedition of the East India Company sets sail from England for the Spice Islands with John Davis as pilot-major.source
- 1616December 25 – Captain Nathaniel Courthope reaches the nutmeg-rich island of Run in the Moluccas, to defend it against the Dutch East India Company. A contract with the inhabitants, accepting James I of England as their sovereign, makes it part of the English colonial empire.source
- 1690April 27 – Sultan Toloko ibn-Sibori becomes the new Sultan of Ternate, located on the Maluku Islands in the Dutch East Indies after the death of his father, Sultan Sibori Amsterdam.source
20th century
- 1977May 23 – Moluccan terrorists take over a school in Bovensmilde, northern Netherlands (105 hostages), and a passenger train on the Bovensmilde–Assen route nearby (90 hostages) at the same time. The children are released on May 26. On June 11, Dutch Royal Marines storm the train, and six terrorists and two hostages are killed.source