Discovery of the Solomon Islands

After three months of sailing west from the Peruvian port of Сallao, Spanish seafarer Alvaro de Menda?a de Neira came across a group of islands east of New Guinea. These six large and several small mountainous islands were covered by tropical forest hiding the huts of local black people. Menda?a named the archipelago the Solomon Islands believing that he had discovered the country of Ophir where King Solomon had received gold and jewelry from for his Jerusalem Temple. In 1893, Britain made the Solomon Islands her protectorate. In 1907, English entrepreneurs set up the first coconut palm tree plantations there. In July of 1978, the Solomon Islands became independent.