Ascension-Island.gov.ac
Title
Ascension Island: Office of The Administrator, Ascension Island
Description
Excerpted from the website:
- The small island of Ascension (93kb Topographic Map) lies in the South Atlantic (7 56'S, 14 22'W) some 750 miles Northwest of the Island of Saint Helena and covers an area of 35 square miles.
- It was discovered by the Portuguese seafarer Joao da Nova Castelia in 1501, (although this visit apparently went unrecorded) and "found again" two years later on Ascension Day by Alphonse d'Albuquerque, who gave the island its name. Being dry and barren it was of little use to the East Indies fleets. So it remained uninhabited until Emperor Napoleon I was incarcerated on St Helena in 1815 when a small British naval garrison was stationed on Ascension to deny it to the French.
