John Strong was an English mariner. During an expedition from

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

in 1689–91, commanding HMS ''Welfare'', he discovered the sound between the two main islands in the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

. He named it

Falkland Sound The Falkland Sound () is a sea strait in the Falkland Islands. Running southwest-northeast, it separates West and East Falkland. Name The sound was named by John Strong in 1690 for Viscount Falkland, the name only later being applied to th ...

for Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount of Falkland, a part-owner in the ''Welfare''. Anthony partly sponsored his journey. Later, the name Falkland was adopted to the entire archipelago. On 27 January 1690, he made the first recorded landing in the Falkland Islands. The expedition continued through the

Strait of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south. Considered the most important natura ...

. His expedition also recorded the first sighting of the

Falkland Islands wolf The Falkland Islands wolf (''Dusicyon australis'') was the only native land mammal of the Falkland Islands. This endemic canid became extinct in 1876, the first known canid to have become extinct in historical times. Traditionally, it had been ...

John Strong left a legacy that continued into the 1700s. In 1765, the English founded their first permanent colony, Port Egmont.

References

17th-century English explorers Year of death missing Year of birth missing {{Falklands-stub