Tourism has been a significant contributor to Bermuda's economy since the 19th century and after World War II, the territory became a prominent offshore financial centre and tax haven.

Bermuda is named after the Spanish sailor Juan de Bermúdez, who discovered the islands in 1505,[1] while sailing for Spain from a provisioning voyage to Hispaniola in the ship La Garça.

[13] Legends arose of spirits and devils, now thought to have stemmed from the calls of raucous birds (most likely the Bermuda petrel, or cahow)[14] and loud nocturnal noises from introduced wild hogs.

[17] However, the flotilla was broken up by a storm and the flagship, the Sea Venture, drove onto Bermuda's reef to prevent her sinking, resulting in the survival of all her passengers and crew.

[9] Bermudians rapidly abandoned agriculture for shipbuilding, replanting farmland with the native juniper trees (Juniperus bermudiana, called Bermuda cedar).

Lacking political channels with Great Britain, the Tucker Family met in May 1775 with eight other parishioners and resolved to send delegates to the Continental Congress in July, aiming for an exemption from the ban.

During the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States, the British attacks on Washington, D.C., and the Chesapeake were planned and launched from Bermuda, where the headquarters of the Royal Navy's North American Station had recently been moved from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

[40] The New York Times reported an attempted mutiny by Boer prisoners of war en route to Bermuda and that martial law was enacted on Darrell's Island.

[41] The most famous escapee was the Boer prisoner of war Captain Fritz Joubert Duquesne, who was serving a life sentence for "conspiracy against the British government and on (the charge of) espionage".

[42] On the night of 25 June 1902, Duquesne slipped out of his tent, worked his way over a barbed-wire fence, swam 1.5 miles (2.4 km) past patrol boats and bright spotlights, through storm-swept waters, using the distant Gibbs Hill Lighthouse for navigation until he arrived ashore on the main island.

[50] In 1948, a regularly scheduled commercial airline service began to operate, using land-based aeroplanes landing at Kindley Field (now L.F. Wade International Airport), helping tourism to reach a peak in the 1960s and 1970s.

Beginning in World War II, US military installations were also located in Bermuda, including a naval air station, and submarine base.

[52] Bermuda is a group of low-forming volcanoes in the Atlantic Ocean, in the west of the Sargasso Sea, roughly 578 nmi (1,070 km; 665 mi) east-southeast of Cape Hatteras[53] on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, United States which is the nearest landmass.

Scuba divers can explore numerous wrecks and coral reefs in relatively shallow water (typically 30–40 ft or 9–12 m in depth), with virtually unlimited visibility.

Thus, post deposition morphology includes chemical erosion, with inshore water bodies demonstrating that much of Bermuda is partially drowned Pleistocene karst.

However, scientists have recently discovered through genetic DNA studies that a species of turtle, the diamondback terrapin, previously thought to have been introduced to the archipelago, actually pre-dated the arrival of humans.

The stripping of citizens' birthrights from Bermudians by the British Government in 1968 and 1971, and the change of their citizenship in 1983, violated the rights granted them by Royal Charters at the founding of the colony.

The citizenship rights guaranteed to settlers by King James I in the original Royal Charter of 10 April 1606, thereby applied to Bermudians:[124][125][126][127] Alsoe wee doe, for us, our heires and successors, declare by theise presentes that all and everie the parsons being our subjects which shall dwell and inhabit within everie or anie of the saide severall Colonies and plantacions and everie of theire children which shall happen to be borne within the limitts and precincts of the said severall Colonies and plantacions shall have and enjoy all liberties, franchises and immunites within anie of our other dominions to all intents and purposes as if they had been abiding and borne within this our realme of Englande or anie other of our saide dominions.

[128]These rights were confirmed in the Royal Charter granted to the London Company's spin-off, the Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles, in 1615 on Bermuda being separated from Virginia: And wee doe for vs our heires and successors declare by these Pnts, that all and euery persons being our subjects which shall goe and inhabite within the said Somer Ilandes and every of their children and posterity which shall happen to bee borne within the limits thereof shall haue and enjoy all libertyes franchesies and immunities of free denizens and natural subjectes within any of our dominions to all intents and purposes, as if they had beene abiding and borne within this our Kingdome of England or in any other of our Dominions[129]Bermuda is not the only territory whose citizenship rights were laid down in a Royal Charter.

Prior to this, the leaders of Bermuda and the United States had not met at the White House since a 1996 meeting between Premier David Saul and President Bill Clinton.

Congressional opposition to their admittance to the United States was very strong[145] and the US failed to find a home for them until Bermuda and Palau agreed to accept the 22 men in June 2009.

With control of the "army" (the militia and coastal artillery), the colony's Royalists deposed the Governor, Captain Thomas Turner, elected John Trimingham to replace him, and exiled many of its Parliamentary leaning Independents to settle the Bahamas under William Sayle as the Eleutheran Adventurers.

Bermuda's barrier reef, coastal artillery batteries and militia provided a defence too powerful for the fleet sent in 1651 by Parliament under the command of Admiral Sir George Ayscue to capture the Royalist colonies.

A number of other Bermudians and their descendants had preceded him into senior ranks, including Bahamian-born Admiral Lord Gambier, and Bermudian-born Royal Marines Brigadier A. John Harvey.

Although the Regiment's predecessors were voluntary units, until 2018 the modern body was formed primarily by conscription: balloted males were required to serve for three years, two months part-time, once they turn 18.

Lawrence Ogilvie, the Bermuda Department of Agriculture plant pathologist saved the industry by identifying the problem as a virus (not aphid damage as previously thought) and instituting controls in the fields and packing houses.

[224][225] West Indian musicians introduced calypso music when Bermuda's tourist industry was expanded with the increase of visitors brought by post-Second World War aviation.

Local icons the Talbot Brothers performed calypso music for many decades both in Bermuda and the United States, and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Alfred Birdsey was one of the more famous and talented watercolourists, known for his impressionistic landscapes of Hamilton, St George's, and the surrounding sailboats, homes, and bays of Bermuda.

In 2010, his sculpture We Arrive was unveiled in Barr's Bay Park, overlooking Hamilton Harbour, to commemorate the freeing of slaves in 1835 from the American brig Enterprise.