BERMUDA
BERMUDA
21 square miles, 138 islands, hundreds of miles from anywhere.
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1511: Peter Martyr publishes his Legatio Babylonica, which mentioned Bermuda. The discovery is attributed to a Spanish explorer, Juan de Bermudez.
1609: England sends a flotilla of ships under Sir George Somers to boost the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. Sir George's ship, the Sea Venture, is wrecked off Bermuda, which thus accidentally becomes an English colony (the Somers Isles is still an official name for the islands). The rest of the flotilla reaches Jamestown in 1610, just in time to save it from starvation.
1612: The Virginia Company lays claim to the island, and sent a party of 60 settlers to Bermuda. Under the command of Sir Thomas Moore, the island's first governor, they found and begin construction of the town of St. George.
1615: King James I grants a charter to a new organization, known as the Somers Isles Company, which runs the island until 1684.
1620: Bermuda becomes a self-governing colony.
1684: The Bermuda Company is nationalized, the islands becoming a Crown colony.
1776-1783: American War of Independence. Bermuda increases in importance as a stopover point between the UK and Canada.
1790: Hamilton is founded; it becomes the capital in 1815.
1807: Slave trade outlawed in Bermuda.
1834: All slaves freed as slavery itself is outlawed in the British Empire.
1861-5: Bermuda becomes a major port for Confederate gun-runners.
1941: The US signs a lend-lease agreement with the United Kingdom, giving the British surplus US Navy destroyers in exchange for 99-year lease rights to establish naval and air bases in certain British territories (not Bermuda). Bermuda grants the US similar 99-year leases 'freely and without consideration'.
1968: Bermuda gains internal self-government.
1995: After intense debate about independence, the Bermudans decisively vote against it. British, US and Canadian military bases on the island are closed
2005: Bermuda comes top in a list of GDP per head.
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