For about the next four centuries, the island was an important stopover for ships between Europe and Asia sailing around the African continent and its southern Cape of Good Hope, before the opening of the shortcut Suez Canal in 1869, in Egypt between the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

Saint Helena is the United Kingdom's second-oldest overseas territory / possession of the old British Empire, after the islands of Bermuda, off the southeast coast of North America.

Although contradictory in describing other events, these chronicles almost unanimously claim that João da Nova found Saint Helena sometime in 1502, although none of them gives a precise date.

[22][23][24][25] An alternative discovery date of 3 May is suggested as being historically more credible; it is the Catholic feast day of the finding of the True Cross by Saint Helena in Jerusalem, and cited by Odoardo Duarte Lopes[26] and Sir Thomas Herbert.

The Portuguese and Spanish soon gave up regularly calling at the island, partly because they used ports along the West African coast, but also because of attacks on their shipping, the desecration of their chapel and religious icons, killings of their livestock, and destruction of their plantations by Dutch pirates.

[36] After the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1660, the EIC received a royal charter, giving it the sole right to fortify and colonise the island.

Ecological problems, such as deforestation, soil erosion, vermin, and drought, led Governor Isaac Pyke to suggest in 1715 that the population be moved to Mauritius, but that was not acted upon.

[37] In the peak era, about 1,000 ships per year stopped there, leaving the governor to try to police the numerous visitors and to limit the consumption of arrack, a distilled alcoholic drink made from potatoes.

Edmond Halley visited Saint Helena on leaving the University of Oxford in 1676, and set up an astronomical observatory with a 7.3-metre-long (24 ft) aerial telescope, intending to study the stars of the Southern Hemisphere.

[37] In 1989, Prince Andrew launched the replacement RMS St Helena to serve the island; the vessel was specially built for the Cardiff–Cape Town route and featured a mixed cargo/passenger layout.

For sharing several trading patterns[clarification needed], and climate effect traits, the island is grouped under West Africa/Africa in most projects, committees and papers of the United Nations.

Much of the island is covered by New Zealand flax, a legacy of former industry, but there are some original trees augmented by plantations, including those of the Millennium Forest project, which was established in 2002 to replant, particularly with indigenous gumwood, part of the lost Great Wood and is now managed by the Saint Helena National Trust.

Other Christian denominations on the island include the Roman Catholic (since 1852), the Salvation Army (since 1884), Baptist (since 1845)[73] and, in more recent times, the Seventh-day Adventist (since 1949), the New Apostolic Church, and Jehovah's Witnesses (of which one in 35 residents is a member, the highest ratio of any country).

[74] The Roman Catholics are pastorally served by the Mission sui iuris of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, whose office of ecclesiastical superior is vested in the Apostolic Prefecture of the Falkland Islands.

One commentator has observed that notwithstanding the high unemployment resulting from the loss of full passports during 1981–2002, the Saint Helena population's loyalty to the British monarchy is probably not exceeded in any other part of the world.

Registrar Karen Yon oversaw the first same-sex wedding between the original 2017 applicants, Saint Helenian Lemarc Thomas and Swedish national Michael Wernstedt, in a ceremony at Plantation House on 31 December 2018.

The remains belonged to liberated Africans who had been rescued by the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron during the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade and brought to Saint Helena.

[94] On the basis of these endemics and an exceptional range of habitats, Saint Helena is on the United Kingdom's tentative list for future UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

In 1991, a crab-fishing vessel, Oman Sea One, which was engaged in potting of crabs, capsized and later sank off the coast of Saint Helena on its way from Ascension Island, losing four crew members.

The document represented a 10-year plan to kick-start the economy after Saint Helena established air access and fibre connectivity and moved away from relying purely on tourism for growth, announcing a desire to "increase exports, and decrease imports".

The SEDP stated that the island's comparative advantages are its natural resources and geography, its status as a British Overseas Territory, its currency, relatively inexpensive labour and property costs, and low crime.

Before the airport opened, the primary tourist groups were dedicated hikers and retirees, as the required voyage on the RMS St Helena took five days each way.

It also outlined the unique selling points of the island, including nature (whale sharks and wirebirds), Saint culture (safer environment), walking and hiking, diving, arts and crafts, twin destination with South Africa, photography, running, history and heritage (Napoleon), stargazing, and food and drink.

But, as the report concludes, the island "remains a place with an anchor in the past, where ... there are single-digit car licence plates and motorists on the hairpin roads unfailingly wave at each other".

[38] Before the lockdowns and restriction necessitated by the COVID-19 global pandemic, Saint Helena was on track to meet its tourism targets of 12% growth a year, in order to achieve over 29,000 leisure visitors by the 25th anniversary of the air service.

[126] One news report in August 2020 stated that the costs imposed by the pandemic led to the "collapse of the island's tourism sector, which was meant to drive its economic development".

[128] An item posted on 4 March 2021 on the UK Government website stated that "all arrivals to St Helena are required to have had a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours before travelling" and with a few exceptions, non-Saints were not allowed to visit.

[149] Telecom services in St Helena are comparatively expensive, for example, all TV channels are encrypted and a subscription costs amount to more than one tenth of an average worker's salary.

The Equiano submarine cable was activated in 2023, substantially improving communications on the island, offering hugely increased bandwidth and unlimited data plans for the first time.

[164] In February 2018, the government of St Helena launched a project to attract low earth orbit satellite operators to install ground stations on the island.