Navigators of several countries have been credited with first
sighting the Falklands but the earliest sighting that has been
conclusively authenticated was by the Dutch sailor Sebald van Weert in
1600. The first known landing was made in 1690 by a British naval
captain, John Strong. He named the Islands after Viscount Falkland, who
was his patron at the time and who shortly afterwards became First Lord
of the Admiralty. A few years later, the French called the Islands ’les
Iles Malouines’ after the port of St Malo, and it was from this that
the Spanish designation, las Islas Malvinas, originated.
In 1764, a small French colony, Port Louis, was established