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Pacific Ocean

ocean between Asia, Australia and the Americas

39 dated entries naming Pacific Ocean, drawn from 38 separate years between 678 BCE and 2025 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 North Pacific, Pacific, South Pacific, South Pacific Ocean in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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7th century BC

  • 678 BCETwo solar eclipses occur on the 1st and the 30th over the Penzhina Bay and the South Pacific Ocean respectively.source

6th century

  • 588Emperor Wéndi of the Sui dynasty prepares a campaign against the Chen dynasty. He amasses 518,000 troops along the northern bank of the Yangtze River, stretching from Sichuan to the Pacific Ocean.source

10th century

  • 950The Tu'i Tonga Empire starts to expand in the Pacific Ocean. The Tu'i Tonga kings establish the capital at Mu'a on the island of Tongatapu (approximate date).source

16th century

  • 1513September 25 – Vasco Núñez de Balboa first sees what will become known as the Pacific Ocean from the Isthimus of Darién. This moment is later referenced in a poem by John Keats called "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" with the line "silent upon a peak in Darién" although he mistakenly references Hernán Cortés as the one who saw the Pacific from Darién.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
  • 1524January 17 – Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, on board La Dauphine in the service of Francis I of France, sets out from Madeira for the New World, to seek out a western sea route to the Pacific Ocean.source
  • 1527October 31 – Spanish conquistador Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón departs from Zihuatanejo in what is now Mexico on a voyage of exploration of the Pacific Ocean, along with three ships, Saavedra's flagship La Florida, and the vessels Espiritu Santo and Santiago.source
  • 1533December 21 (Feast of St Thomas the Apostle) – Hernando de Grijalva and his crew become the first persons discover the uninhabited Revillagigedo Islands, off the Pacific coast of Mexico, reporting the finding of what Grijalva names Isla Santo Tomé, probably Socorro Island.source
  • 1574November 22 – The Juan Fernández Islands in the South Pacific Ocean are discovered by Spanish sailor Juan Fernández.source
  • 1578September 6 – After 16 days travel, the fleet of Francis Drake completes its traverse of the Strait of Magellan between the tip of South America and Tierra del Fuego. Upon entering the Pacific Ocean, the fleet encounters violent storms. The supply ship Marigold, with over 100 men under the command of John Thomas, is lost with all hands off of Cape Horn. The rest of the fleet continues its voyage around the world.source
  • 159712 million pesos of silver cross the Pacific. Although it is unknown just how much silver flowed from the Spanish base of Manila in the Philippines to the Ming Dynasty of China, it is known that the main port for the Mexican silver trade—Acapulco—shipped out 150,000 to 345,000 kg (4 to 9 million taels) of silver annually from this year to 1602.source

17th century

  • 170027 February – The island of New Britain is discovered by William Dampier in the western Pacific.source

18th century

  • 1702January 2 – A total solar eclipse is visible from the southern Pacific Ocean.source
  • 1725Peter the Great sends Vitus Bering to explore the North Pacific.source
  • 1742First scientific report on the North Pacific fur seal.source
  • 1767June 17 – British Royal Navy Captain Samuel Wallis becomes the first European to visit the island of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean, during HMS Dolphins second circumnavigation; he also sights Mehetia.source
  • 177213 July – navigator James Cook sets out from Plymouth on HMS Resolution for a second Pacific voyage.source
  • 1775Typhoon Liengkieki devastates the Pacific atoll of Pingelap.source
  • 177612 July – Captain James Cook sets off from Plymouth in HMS Resolution on his third voyage, to the Pacific Ocean and Arctic, which will be fatal to him.source
  • 177818 January – the third Pacific expedition of James Cook, with ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, first views Oahu then Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands".source
  • 17891789–93 – Alexander Mackenzie of Canada, seeking northern river route to the Pacific, travels to the Arctic Ocean; on second journey he crosses continent by land, making contact with many tribes.source
  • 179320 July – Stornoway-born explorer Alexander Mackenzie's 1792–1793 Peace River expedition to the Pacific Ocean reaches its goal at Bella Coola, British Columbia, making him the first known person to complete a transcontinental crossing of northern North America.source

19th century

  • 1811British-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and cartographer David Thompson follows Columbia to Pacific and finishes charting entire length of the river.source
  • 1855April 7 – Battle of Kaba: The Kingdom of Tonga in the islands of the southwest Pacific Ocean (Polynesia, Melanesia / Oceania), intervenes in the war between the self-proclaimed Tui Viti (King) of the island of Fiji, Cakobau, and his rivals the Confederation of Rewa. It results in Rewa's defeat and the tenuous unification of Fiji under Cakobau.source
  • 1885November 7 – The Last Spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway at Craigellachie, British Columbia. John A. Macdonald receives a telegram announcing that the first train from Montreal in Quebec is approaching the Pacific.source
  • 189912 February – The majority of the Kingdom of Spain's remaining territories in the Pacific are sold to the German Empire through the German–Spanish Treaty.source

20th century

  • 1928June 9 – Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew complete the first flight across the Pacific Ocean, from the mainland United States to Australia, in the Fokker F.VII aircraft Southern Cross. Having left Oakland, California on May 31, they reach Brisbane via Honolulu and Fiji.source
  • 19298–29 August – Rigid airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin makes a circumnavigation of the Northern Hemisphere eastabout out of Lakehurst, New Jersey, including the first nonstop flight of any kind across the Pacific Ocean (Tokyo–Los Angeles).source
  • 1929August 8–29 – German rigid airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin makes a circumnavigation of the Northern Hemisphere eastabout out of Lakehurst, New Jersey, including the first nonstop flight of any kind across the Pacific Ocean (Tokyo–Los Angeles).source
  • 1942April 18 – WWII: Doolittle Raid – Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle leads a bombing mission against Japan, along with 79 other airmen of the U.S. Air Force, flying 16 North American B-25 Mitchell land-based bombers. They take off from the USS Hornet in the Pacific Ocean, some 700 miles (1,126 km) east of Tokyo. Thirteen of the B-25 bombers fly over Tokyo and drop their bombs on oil storage facilities, factories and military targets. The other three B-25s drop their bombs over Yokohama, Nagoya and Kobe. All but one of the B-25s run out of fuel before reaching friendly forces in western China and are forced to land in Japanese-occupied China. With the support of Chinese farmers, 71 airmen reach free China. Eight airmen are captured by the Japanese, who execute four of them in retaliation for the raid.source
  • 19477 August – Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 4,300-mile journey across the Pacific Ocean, proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.source
  • 1952November 1 – Nuclear testing: Operation Ivy: The United States successfully detonates the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike", at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, with a yield of 10.4 megatons.source
  • 1957March 22 – A United States Air Force Boeing C-97 disappears somewhere over the Pacific Ocean near the coast of Japan. All 67 people and the aircraft remain missing to this day.source
  • 196022 May – The 1960 Valdivia earthquake occurs; with a magnitude of 9.5 MW, it is the largest recorded earthquake. Its epicenter was the city of Valdivia and mainly affected the area between Talca and Chiloé Archipelago. The earthquake was felt in different parts of the planet and produced a tidal wave which affected various locations throughout the Pacific Ocean such as Hawaii and Japan. It also caused the eruption of the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle, which covered the Puyehue Lake with ashes. Between 1,655 and 2,000 people died, and more than 2 million were affected by this disaster.source
  • 1969November 24 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second crewed mission to the Moon.source

21st century

  • 2009July 22 – The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, lasting up to 6 minutes and 38.86 seconds (0.14 seconds shorter than 6 minutes and 39 seconds), occurs over parts of Asia and the Pacific Ocean.source
  • 2023July 19 – Typhoon Doksuri forms in the eastern Pacific Ocean, going on to kill 137 people in Southeast Asia.source
  • 20249 August - Indian President Droupadi Murmu makes the first-ever visit by an Indian head of state to Timor-Leste, as part of a tour of Pacific region countries.source
  • 2025December 8 – A Mw 7.6 earthquake occurs in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Aomori Prefecture in Japan, triggering a tsunami up to 70 cm high.source

Named in the same entries