📅 Easter Island gets its name (1722)
Where: Rapa Nui (Easter Island)
📅 On This Day: April 5
April 5, 1722: Easter Island gets its name. On this day in 1722, Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen reached a lonely island in the Pacific. It was Easter Sunday, so he named it Easter Island. Its own people call it Rapa Nui, and it is famous for its giant stone statues, the moai.
✨ More events on this day
- 1827 🔬 Surgeon Joseph Lister was born in England; he taught doctors to kill germs during operations, which made surgery much safer for patients.
- 1991 🚀 Space Shuttle Atlantis launched to place the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory in orbit, a telescope that spotted powerful flashes of energy across the universe. Kennedy Space Center →
- 1998 🏛️ Japan's Akashi Kaikyō Bridge opened to cars, and its middle span of nearly two kilometres was the longest of any bridge in the world.
🧠 Question of the day
Where does the name Easter Island come from?
- He arrived on Easter Sunday
- The island is egg-shaped
- The island is in the east
Show the answer
Answer: He arrived on Easter Sunday
🎂 Landmarks that opened on April 5
Questions
What happened on April 5?
April 5, 1722: Easter Island gets its name. It happened in Rapa Nui (Easter Island).
Which landmarks opened on April 5?
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (opened 1980).
In the game, the "Today on Earth" panel shows this story on its day, with a question to answer and a place to fly to.