History
The island was discovered by Vitus Bering in 1741. A Russian settlement sprang up in 1759, but four years later it was destroyed by the Aleuts, together with four merchant ships. The massacre claimed the lives of 162 Russian settlers. The survivors managed to hold their own until 1764, when they were rescued by the Russians. This event triggered bloody reprisals against the natives which cost the lives of about 5,000 Aleuts.
The 1788 expedition of Esteban José Martínez and Gonzalo López de Haro explored the coast of Alaska as far as Unalaska Island, marking the farthest west the Spanish ever explored in the region.
Also in 1788, English explorer James Cook visited the island, and spells it Oonalashka in his journal.
In Moscow on May 31, 1988, President Ronald Reagan mentioned the meeting of Americans and Russians on this island in the 19th century as an example of early U.S.-Russian friendship.
On December 8, 2004, the Malaysian cargo ship Selendang Ayu ran aground off Unalaska Island, causing a large oil spill.
Read more about this topic: Unalaska Island
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)