English Harbour on the south-eastern coast provides one of the largest deep water, protected harbors in the Eastern Caribbean.

[5][6] English Harbour and the neighbouring village of Falmouth are yachting and sailing destinations and provisioning centres.

Every December for the past 60 years, Antigua has been home to one of the largest charter yacht shows, welcoming super-yachts from around the world.

In 1493, Christopher Columbus, sailing for Spain, named the island Santa María de la Antigua [es].

Some sources say Columbus named the island after a church in Seville called Santa María de la Antigua.

They paddled to the island by canoe (piragua) from present-day Venezuela, pushed out by the Carib, another indigenous people.

According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, the Caribs' superior weapons and seafaring prowess allowed them to defeat most Arawak nations in the West Indies.

On his 1493 voyage, honouring a vow, he named many islands after different aspects of St. Mary, including Montserrat and Guadeloupe.

Lord Horatio Nelson, a major figure in Antigua's history, arrived in the late 18th century to defend the island's commercial shipping prowess.

Sugar became Antigua's main crop in about 1674, when Christopher Codrington (c. 1640–1698) settled at Betty's Hope plantation.

[21] Today, collectors prize the uniquely designed colonial furniture built by West Indian slaves.

In 1729, a man named Hercules was hanged, drawn and quartered and three others were burnt alive, for conspiring to kill the slave owner Nathaniel Crump and his family.

The coronation appeared to be just a colourful spectacle but was, for the enslaved people, a ritual declaration of war on the colonists.

From information obtained from other slaves, the colonists discovered the plot and implemented a brutal crackdown on suspected rebels.

[26] "Traveling ... at slavery's end, [Joseph] Sturge and [Thomas] Harvey (1838 ...) found few married slaves residing together or even on the same estate.

Unlike the Antiguan merchants, Nelson had a positive view of the controversial Navigation Acts:[28] The Americans were at this time trading with our islands, taking advantage of the register of their ships, which had been issued while they were British subjects.

Nelson knew that, by the Navigation Act, no foreigners, directly or indirectly, are permitted to carry on any trade with these possessions.

[29] In 1967, with Barbuda and the tiny island of Redonda, Antigua became an associated state of the Commonwealth, and in November 1981 it was disassociated from Britain.

The mission provided high rate telemetry data for the Eastern Range and its space launches.

Antigua's economy relies largely on tourism, and the island is promoted as a luxury Caribbean escape.

The island's medical schools cater mostly to foreign students but contribute to the local economy and health care.

This was a prima facie violation of the GATS treaty obligations enforced by the WTO, resulting in a series of rulings unfavourable to the US.

[42] The WTO ruling was notable in two respects: First, although technically a victory for Antigua, the $21 million was far less than the US$3.5 billion which had been sought; one of the three arbitrators was sufficiently bothered by the propriety of this that he issued a dissenting opinion.

Second, a rider to the arbitration ruling affirmed the right of Antigua to take retaliatory steps in view of the prior failure of the US to comply with GATS.

Antigua is therefore able to recoup some of the claimed loss of trade by hosting (and taxing) companies whose business model depends on immunity from TRIPS provisions.

[45] Software company SlySoft was based in Antigua, allowing it to avoid nations with laws that are tough on anti-circumvention of technological copyright measures, in particular the DMCA in the United States.

[48] The bank was later sued by the United States for failure to release forfeited funds from one of its account holders.

On 17 February 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Allen Stanford, Laura Pendergest-Holt and James Davis with fraud[63][64][65] in connection with the bank's US$8 billion certificate of deposit (CD) investment scheme that offered "improbable and unsubstantiated high interest rates".

"Stanford International Bank's financial statements, including its investment income, are fictional," the SEC said.

Vivian ("Viv") Richards is one of the most famous Antiguans, who played for, and captained, the West Indies cricket team.