• in 1789 Spain seized the British sloop Princess Royal, nearly causing a war, then used the vessel to explore the Strait of Juan de Fuca, finding the San Juan Islands and the entrances to Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia?
• Orcas Island, named for the area's killer whales, is the largest of Washington state's San Juan Islands?
  

Facts on topics related to San Juan Islands

Seattle

• 1930s Federal Theatre Project director Hallie Flanagan considered Seattle's Playhouse Theatre to be the project's best "Negro unit"?
• Mississippi-born Joshua Green had successive careers as a major figure in the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet and as a Seattle banker?
• Seattle's Ballard Carnegie Library remains standing 44 years after it was sold, despite experts' claims that it would not survive an earthquake?
• Seattle-based company Sur La Table is the second-largest specialty cookware retailer in the United States, after Williams-Sonoma?
• a park in Seattle is named after Terry Pettus, a onetime Communist whose conviction for conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government was overturned by the Supreme Court?
• bikini baristas can be found mixing up coffee drinks all over the Seattle area?
• Marra Farm is one of only two historic agricultural parcels inside Seattle, Washington, city limits that retains an agricultural use today?
• Ohaveth Sholum Congregation, Seattle's first Jewish congregation, fell four days short of having the first synagogue in Washington?
• PK Dwyer is credited with forming the first-ever street band to busk at Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington?
• Reginald H. Thomson, the civil engineer responsible for "virtually all of Seattle's infrastructure", had a Ph.D. in philosophy?

Puget Sound

• in 1789 Spain seized the British sloop Princess Royal, nearly causing a war, then used the vessel to explore the Strait of Juan de Fuca, finding the San Juan Islands and the entrances to Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia?