History
The island was named after the 17th century Dutch squadron commander Johannes de Neckere, although it remained uninhabited until the late 20th century.
In 1965 the celebrated photographer Don McCullin and the journalist Andrew Alexander, spent fourteen days on the island at the behest of the Telegraph newspaper for which they worked. The magazine editor had hoped that they would survive their castaway adventure for at least three weeks, but as McCullin later recounted, "because of our gathering weakness (…) out of temper, and out of water, we hoisted the red flag and were taken off in the early hours of the fifteenth day". According to McCullin, there was nothing idyllic about the desert island: "It was inhabited by snakes, scorpions and tarantulas (…) The mosquitos and other insects were more venomous and persistent than any I had encountered in Vietnam or the Congo."
Read more about this topic: Necker Island (British Virgin Islands)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)