Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira

Álvaro de Mendaña de Neyra (* 1541 in the province of León, † October 18, 1595 in Santa Cruz, today: Nendo ), was a Spanish explorer and navigator.

Approximately 1558 Mendaña emigrated to Lima, Peru, from where his uncle, Lope García de Castro, governor-general was. In 1566 he was commissioned to explore the southern continent, the geographers of the School of Dieppe on their maps were drawn ( on the site of present-day Australia) in the Pacific Ocean. With two sailing vessels and 150 crew, he broke on November 19, 1567 by Callao, a port near Lima, in the direction of Australia and discovered on this trip in February 1568, the Wake Atoll, the islands Nui and Santa Isabel in a group of islands, which he called Solomon Islands.

On April 11, 1595 Mendaña de Neyra broke up with his wife Isabel to another, the second expedition and pushed on, inter alia, Pukapuka, now one of the Cook Islands belonging, and the Marquesas Islands. He also sighted the uninhabited island of Elliceinseln Niulakita.

On the island of Santa Cruz, the island today Nendo, he founded a Spanish colony; there he died on October 18, 1595 from the effects of malaria.