Discovery Day is a public holiday in the Cayman Islands, and it is observed on the third Monday in May each year. The holiday commemorates the anniversary when Christopher Columbus first sighted the Sister Islands of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman in 1503.
Christopher Columbus left Cadiz, a city and port in southwestern Spain, with his flagship on May 11, 1502, and started his 4th and the final voyage to the Americas. On May 10, 1503, he and his crew became the first Europeans saw Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. They did not stop at the islands, but they named them Las Tortugas due to a large number of sea turtles.
In the following years, a variety of people with various backgrounds started to settle on the island. The British formally took control of the Cayman Islands along with Jamaica Islands in 1670. In 1863, the islands became administered as a dependency of the Crown Colony of Jamaica. In 1962, Jamaica gained its independence from the United Kingdom, and the Cayman Islands became a separate Crown colony.
The following is the list of Discovery Day in the Cayman Islands from 2022 to 2026.
| Holiday | Date | Weekday |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery Day | May 16, 2022 | Monday |
| Discovery Day | May 15, 2023 | Monday |
| Discovery Day | May 20, 2024 | Monday |
| Discovery Day | May 19, 2025 | Monday |
| Discovery Day | May 18, 2026 | Monday |
Please check more public holidays in the Cayman Islands :