Top 10 facts about St Helena
The island of St Helena in the South Atlantic was discovered by the Portuguese navigator João de Nova on May 21, 1502.
1. He named it after St Helena of Constantinople, the consort of Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus and mother of Constantine the Great.
2. She is a patron saint of archaeologists, converts, difficult marriages, divorced people, empresses and the island of Saint Helena.
3. She is said to have been the daughter of the British King Coel, on whom Old King Cole may have been based.
4. St Helena has only one newspaper, one radio station and one internet service provider.
5. St Helena has been a British Overseas Territory for longer than anywhere else except Bermuda.
6. St Helena is said to have discovered the cross on which Jesus was crucified.
7. She is said to have protected her son by placing one crucifixion nail in his helmet and one in his horse’s saddle.
8. The British used St Helena as a prison for both Napoleon and some 5,000 Boer War captives.
9. St Helena is ten miles long, five miles wide and has an international dialling code of 290.
10. Charles Darwin visited St Helena in 1836 and described it as “a curious little world within itself”.
