AncientPages.com - On January 18, 1778, Captain James Cook, the English explorer, became the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands. He arrived on the Islands on his third voyage to the Pacific.
Commanding the Resolution and Discovery on a mission to explore a Northwest Passage and plot Venus's transit, Cook first sighted the islands of O'ahu, then Kaua'i and Ni'ihau on January 18, 1778.
Official portrait of Captain James Cook. Image credit: - from the National Maritime Museum, United Kingdom - Public Domain
The Hawaiians greeted him as a sacred high chief or a god. These people were fascinated by the Europeans' ships and their use of iron.
Cook responded to the islanders' hospitality by giving Hawaiians three goats, pumpkins, onions, two English pigs, and seeds to plant melons. After naming the Islands after his patron, John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, Cook left for northern waters to complete his mission.
Returning to winter in the Islands in November, Cook and his ships tacked off the coasts of Maui and Hawai'i for eight weeks before anchoring for an extended stay at Kealakekua Bay.
Captain Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe in three voyages. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a scale not previously achieved. He recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time.
Cook was an expert mapmaker. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions.
Unfortunately, there was a tragic incident; Cook was attacked and killed in a confrontation with Hawaiians during his third exploration mission in 1779.
He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge to influence his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him.
Updated on January 12, 2023
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