Friday, August 14th 2026 - 21:43 UTC
The ship appears on the territory's coat of arms and gives rise to its motto, “Desire the Right.”
The Falkland Islands Legislative Assembly marked Falklands Day on Friday, the anniversary of the first recorded sighting of the archipelago, on August 14, 1592. The day was marked by raising the Falkland Islands flag and the Union flag side by side on Victory Green, in Stanley.
The sighting is credited to English navigator John Davis, who commanded the Desire, a 120-ton vessel, and came upon the then-uninhabited islands after being blown off course while attempting to round Cape Horn through the Straits of Magellan. His account was published in London in 1600 by Richard Hakluyt. The ship appears on the territory's coat of arms and gives rise to its motto, “Desire the Right.”
Davis's voyage was followed by sightings by the Englishman Richard Hawkins in 1594 and the Dutch explorer Sebald de Weert in January 1600. The first recorded landing did not take place until 1690, when English sea captain John Strong came ashore at Bold Cove, near present-day Port Howard.
