History

Vasco Núñez de Balboa, a Spaniard who crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and viewed what he called the South Sea, is credited with the Pacific's discovery. However, the people of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia had long before settled the islands and traveled extensively. Even Marco Polo and other medieval European travelers in Asia probably reached the Pacific centuries before Balboa.

In 1520 Ferdinand Magellan became the first European to cross the ocean. He named it “Pacific” for its calm waters. During the following three centuries, such men as Francis Drake, Abel Tasman, Vitus Bering, James Cook, and George Vancouver added to the world's knowledge of the ocean. Cook's work was particularly significant, for between 1768 and 1779 he charted most of the South Pacific lands. Following the explorers were whalers, traders, missionaries, and colonists. Contact with European diseases was disastrous on some islands, all but destroying the native populations.

The 19th century brought investigations by naturalists Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin. In the early 1870's the voyage of the British ship Challenger became the first of many scientific expeditions probing the Pacific's waters. One of particular importance was conducted as part of the International Geophysical Year (1957–58).

American interests in the Pacific date back to the 1800's, as evidenced by its whaling activity there and the opening of Japan to commerce by Commodore Matthew C. Perry. Late in the century, the Philippine Islands and Guam were acquired, at the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. Hawaii was annexed in 1900. The United States fought numerous sea and island battles in the Pacific during World War II.

In 1946 the Philippines achieved independence, and during the 1970's and 1980's a number of island groups in Melanesia and Polynesia became independent. In 1994 Palau achieved independence.