The southern eight islands of the South Sandwich Islands were discovered by
Captain James Cook in 1775 during his
second voyage aboard
HMS Resolution. On 31 January, Cook described sighting "three rocky islots of considerable height," naming the outermost "Freezland Peak" after the sailor who first spotted it. He named the area "Sandwich Land" in honor of
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, then
First Lord of the Admiralty. The designation "South" was later added to distinguish these islands from the "Sandwich Islands," now known as
Hawaii. The northern three islands (
Zavodovski,
Leskov, and
Visokoi), collectively known as the
Traversay Islands—were discovered in November 1819 by a
Russian expedition led by
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen aboard the sloop
Vostok, with
Mikhail Lazarev commanding the
Mirny. The group was named in honor of
Jean-Baptiste Prevost de Sansac, Marquis de Traversay, the Russian Minister of Naval Affairs. The United Kingdom formally annexed the South Sandwich Islands through
letters patent in 1908, grouping them into the
Falkland Islands Dependencies alongside
South Georgia, the
South Orkneys, the
South Shetlands, and
Graham Land. Argentina claimed the South Sandwich Islands in 1938 and challenged British sovereignty in the islands on several occasions. From 25 January 1955 through the summer of 1956 Argentina maintained the summer station Teniente Esquivel at Ferguson Bay on the southeastern coast of
Thule Island. From 1976 to 1982, Argentina maintained a naval base named
Corbeta Uruguay in the lee (southern east coast) of the same island. Although the British discovered the presence of the Argentine base in 1976, protested, and tried to resolve the issue by diplomatic means, no effort was made to remove them by force until after the
Falklands War. The base was eventually removed on 20 June 1982 and the installations were demolished in December of that year. On 10 February 2008, an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 on the
Richter Scale had its epicenter south-southeast of
Bristol Island. On 30 June 2008, an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck the region. Its epicentre was at away from
Bristol Island, at a depth of . ==Geography==