Download "The Annals of Tristan da Cunha
1506
In early 1506, Alfonso de Alburquerque, first Viceroy of Portuguese India was proceeding from Lisbon to India via the Cape of Good Hope, when a violent storm dispersed his fleet, composed of thirteen vessels. Tristão da Cunha, one of his captains, was driven so far to the south that his crew suffered severely from the cold, and he came across the isolated islands, which still bear his name.
August 31:
Pedro Corsmo wrote to the King of Portugal that he went to Mozambique to wait for Tristao da Cunha.
1520
The Portuguese navigator Ruy Vaz Pereira, Captain of the ship Lás Rafael called for water at Tristan, on the way to Muscat.
1557
July:
In April Luis Fernandez de Vasemcellos sailed from Portugal from India as Captain of the ship Santa Maria da Carca . At the island of Palma. (one of the Canaries) he met the new Portuguese Governor of Brazil, Men de Sad, and in his company he sailed to Brazil. From Brazil he sailed to Tristan, which he sighted at the beginning of July.
1563
On a map by G.S. Sideri Callapoda, a Greek Cartographer, is found for the first time the discovery of Tristan da Cunha Island:
"a roughly designed island midway between the occidental coast of South America and the oriental coast of South Africa, with the legend: I. de Tristá de Cuhna."
1598
August:
Jacob van Heck, commanding eight vessels from Holland and bound for the West Indies, sails close along the northern coast of Tristan.