Episode 1 of 3

First European sighting of the Hawaiian Islands

When: 18 January 1778
Where: Hawaiian Islands (Sandwich Islands)
Part of: James Cook's Third Voyage: Discovery of Hawaii

Cook's expedition became the first recorded Europeans to see the Hawaiian Islands on 18 January 1778, naming them the Sandwich Islands.

Sailing northward after a brief stop at Kiritimati, Cook's ships HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery became the first recorded Europeans to see the Hawaiian Islands on 18 January 1778. Cook named the archipelago the Sandwich Islands after the fourth Earl of Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty. The encounter was serendipitous, occurring while crossing the Pacific during the third voyage of exploration.

Sources

James Cook Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-22
Hawaii Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-25

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.