Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo (João Rodrigues Cabrilho) a Portuguese explorer sailing the Caravel "San Salvador" under the Spanish flag, enters San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542, landing at what is now Point Loma. Cabrillo named the bay San Miguel, in honor of Saint Michael the Archangel. This was the first recorded European landing on the West Coast of the United States.
Cabrillo had set sail from the port of Navidad, Mexico, on June 27, 1542 with a Spanish-commissioned expedition to find a route to the Orient and to map the coast of the present-day United States. Cabrillo died on January 3, 1543, from an infected injury sustained during a skirmish on an island, likely San Miguel Island part of the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara. the The expedition's second-in-command, Bartolomé Ferrelo, took command and continued the voyage, potentially reaching as far north as the Rogue River in Oregon, and returning to Mexico the following year with the log of their discoveries. More
Unknown sourceUnknown source, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons