 It was discovered by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernández de Quirós who served for the Spanish expedition on 25 April 1606 and named it "Nuestra Señora de la Luz" (Our Lady of Light).The island is famous because its language was used by the first missionaries in Melanesia.For the better part of a century from 1849, most teaching in classrooms and schools of all kinds, and most prayers and hymns from Isabel in the Solomons all the way through Pentecost in Vanuatu were done in the language of this small island.