Records · c. 5200 BC
The Caribbean's oldest archaeological site is Trinidadian.
Did you know that Banwari Trace, a pre-ceramic shell midden in southwestern Trinidad, is regarded as the oldest archaeological site in the Caribbean, with a first occupation dated to roughly 7,200 years ago.
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Heritage · c. 3400 BC
Banwari Man is the Caribbean's oldest skeleton.
Did you know that Banwari Man, a skeleton found in November 1969 buried in a crouched position in a shell midden, is about 5,400 years old and is considered the oldest human skeleton found in the Caribbean.
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Heritage · c. 2000 BC
A Caribbean migration wave bears a Trinidad name.
Did you know that the Ortoiroid people, an early wave of settlers who spread from the Orinoco through Trinidad to Puerto Rico from about 2000 BC, are named after Ortoire, a shell midden in southeast Trinidad.
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Heritage · 31 July 1498
Trinidad's name fulfilled Columbus's vow.
Did you know that Columbus named Trinidad on 31 July 1498 to fulfil a vow to dedicate his first landfall to the Holy Trinity, and the three peaks he sighted from his ship seemed to confirm the choice.
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Language · 1511
Tobago is probably named after tobacco.
Did you know that the name Tabaco for Tobago first appears in a Spanish royal order of 1511, and the island's outline was said to resemble the fat cigars smoked by Indigenous people, though Columbus had called it Belaforme.
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Firsts · 1592
St Joseph was Trinidad's first lasting town.
Did you know that the first lasting Spanish settlement on Trinidad, San José de Oruña, founded by Antonio de Berrío in 1592, survives today as the town of St Joseph, a few kilometres east of Port of Spain.
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Economy · 1595
Raleigh caulked his ships with Trinidad pitch.
Did you know that Sir Walter Raleigh used asphalt from Trinidad's Pitch Lake to caulk his ship in 1595, praising it as most excellent pitch that, unlike the pitch of Norway, did not melt in the sun.
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Heritage · 1654
A Baltic duchy once colonised Tobago.
Did you know that the Duchy of Courland, a small Baltic state now part of Latvia, planted colonists on Tobago in the 17th century, and Great Courland Bay and a Courland Monument there still recall Duke Jacob's colonial ambitions.
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Myth or fact · 11 December 1677
A third French shell ended Dutch Tobago.
Did you know that the Dutch hold on Tobago ended in December 1677 when the third French shell fired from a hill hit the fort's powder magazine, and the explosion killed Admiral Jacob Binckes along with many of his officers.
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Society · 1 December 1699
An Amerindian uprising killed Trinidad's governor.
Did you know that Amerindians at the Arena mission in east Trinidad rose up on 1 December 1699, killing the Capuchin priests and then ambushing Spanish Governor José de León y Echales, who died with nearly his whole party.
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Geography · 1757
Port of Spain became capital by default.
Did you know that Port of Spain became Trinidad's capital almost by default in 1757, when Governor Pedro de la Moneda moved his seat there because the old inland capital of San José de Oruña had fallen into disrepair.
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Geography · 2 June 1781
France took Tobago during the American war.
Did you know that France seized Tobago from Britain on 2 June 1781, during the American Revolutionary War, after troops landed on both sides of the island and British Governor George Ferguson's force retreated into the hills.
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Society · 1783
Trinidad offered land by the acre to Catholics.
Did you know that Spain's 1783 Cedula of Population offered every Roman Catholic settler 32 acres of Trinidad land plus 16 more per enslaved person brought, helping the population jump from under 1,400 in 1777 to over 15,000 by 1789.
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Myth or fact · 18 February 1797
Spain burned its own fleet at Chaguaramas.
Did you know that when a British fleet under Sir Ralph Abercromby arrived in February 1797, the Spanish squadron in Chaguaramas Bay set its own warships on fire, and Governor José María Chacón then surrendered Trinidad without a real fight.
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Society · 1801
A torture case put a governor on trial.
Did you know that Governor Thomas Picton approved the torture of 14-year-old Luisa Calderón in Trinidad in 1801, and the scandal led to his 1806 trial in London, years before he was killed at Waterloo.
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Firsts · 12 October 1806
Chinese settlers arrived as early as 1806.
Did you know that the first Chinese settlers reached Trinidad aboard the Fortitude on 12 October 1806, recruited mostly in Macau and Penang for a British experiment in free labour, but only seven remained by 1834.
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Records · 1814
Tobago changed hands 33 times.
Did you know that Tobago is said to have changed hands 33 times, the most in Caribbean history, among Spanish, Dutch, Courlander, French and British claimants, before the 1814 Treaty of Paris finally confirmed British rule.
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Heritage · 1815–1816
American ex-slaves founded Trinidad's Company villages.
Did you know that formerly enslaved African Americans who fought for Britain in the War of 1812, known as the Merikins, settled in south Trinidad in 1815–16, and some of their Company villages still exist.
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Firsts · 30 May 1845
Indian Arrival Day began with one ship.
Did you know that the Fatel Razack, a teak ship built for a Bombay merchant, landed 225 Indian indentured immigrants in the Gulf of Paria on 30 May 1845, the date now celebrated as Indian Arrival Day.
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Economy · 1857
Trinidad's oil story began at La Brea.
Did you know that the Merrimac Oil Company drilled one of Trinidad's earliest oil wells at La Brea, beside the Pitch Lake, in 1857, striking oil at a depth of about 280 feet.
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Society · 1876
A riot made Tobago planters surrender self-rule.
Did you know that after the Belmanna riots of 1876, Tobago's white planters, alarmed by growing Black militancy, voted to dissolve their own representative government and accept rule as a British Crown colony instead.
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Culture · 1881
J'ouvert grew out of the Canboulay riots.
Did you know that the pre-dawn J'ouvert opening of Trinidad Carnival traces back to Canboulay, and to the 1881 riots that broke out when colonial police tried to suppress the torch-lit procession in Port of Spain.
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Society · 30 October 1884
A Muharram procession ended in massacre.
Did you know that colonial police opened fire on Hosay marchers, celebrants of the Shia festival of Muharram who had been banned from entering San Fernando, on 30 October 1884, in what became known as the Hosay massacre.
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Economy · 1887
Trinidad asphalt paved early New York streets.
Did you know that asphalt from Trinidad's Pitch Lake paved many early roads in New York City and Washington, DC, after American businessman Amzi Barber's company won a 42-year monopoly concession on the lake in 1887.
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Geography · 1899
Tobago was reduced to a 'ward' of Trinidad.
Did you know that after joining Trinidad in a single colony on 1 January 1889, Tobago was downgraded in 1899 to a mere ward of Trinidad and Tobago, administered by a warden rather than its own government.
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Society · 23 March 1903
A water-rate protest burned down Parliament.
Did you know that a protest over water meters and higher water charges on 23 March 1903 ended with Port of Spain's Red House, the seat of the legislature, gutted by fire and sixteen protesters shot dead by police.
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Culture · 1912
Calypso was first recorded in New York.
Did you know that the first identifiably calypso recording was made in New York City in 1912 by Trinidad's Lovey's String Band, two years before stick-fighter Julian Whiterose, the Iron Duke, recorded the first calypsos sung in English.
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Society · 1917
About 145,000 Indians came before indenture ended.
Did you know that about 145,000 Indians migrated to Trinidad before Indian indentured immigration ended in 1917, and their descendants now form the country's largest ethnic group, with roots mostly in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
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Sport · 1928
A Trinidadian took West Indies' first Test wicket.
Did you know that Trinidad's Learie Constantine took the West Indies' very first wicket in Test cricket on the 1928 tour of England, then signed with the Lancashire League club Nelson, where he starred for a decade.
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Society · 19 June 1937
Labour Day recalls a Fyzabad uprising.
Did you know that Grenadian-born preacher Tubal Uriah Butler sparked the 1937 oilfield riots when police tried to arrest him at a Fyzabad meeting on 19 June, a date now marked as Labour Day in Trinidad and Tobago.
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Geography · 1940
The US Navy leased a whole Trinidad peninsula.
Did you know that the entire Chaguaramas peninsula was leased to the United States in 1940 under the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, becoming Naval Base Trinidad, and was only returned to local control in 1963.
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Culture · 1944
The first PM wrote a famous history thesis.
Did you know that Eric Williams, Trinidad and Tobago's first prime minister, was first known as a historian, publishing Capitalism and Slavery in 1944, which argued that economics rather than humanitarianism drove Britain's abolition of slavery.
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Firsts · 1946
Universal suffrage arrived only in 1946.
Did you know that every adult in Trinidad and Tobago could vote for the first time only in the 1946 general election, when universal adult suffrage replaced a franchise restricted by income, property and language.
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Firsts · 26 July 1951
The first steelband abroad played London in 1951.
Did you know that the Trinidad All-Steel Pan Percussion Orchestra, formed for the 1951 Festival of Britain, gave its first performance at London's South Bank on 26 July, becoming the first steelband to travel abroad.
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Geography · 1958
Chaguaramas was meant to be a federal capital.
Did you know that the Chaguaramas peninsula was the intended site for the capital of the short-lived West Indies Federation formed in 1958, but it was still occupied by the US naval base at the time.
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Nature · 30 September 1963
A hurricane turned Tobago toward tourism.
Did you know that Hurricane Flora in 1963 destroyed 2,750 of Tobago's 7,500 houses and half its coconut trees, devastating plantations so badly that the island's economy shifted from agriculture toward tourism.
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Firsts · 1969
A Trinidadian cricketer became Britain's first Black peer.
Did you know that cricketer Learie Constantine, knighted in 1962, became Britain's first Black peer when he was made a life peer in 1969, after helping to push through the UK's 1965 Race Relations Act.
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Society · April 1970
Black Power protests triggered an army mutiny.
Did you know that the 1970 Black Power Revolution led to a state of emergency and to a mutiny by soldiers at Teteron Barracks on the Chaguaramas peninsula, which ended only after five days.
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Sport · 24 July 1976
Hasely Crawford won the nation's first Olympic gold.
Did you know that sprinter Hasely Crawford became Trinidad and Tobago's first Olympic champion by winning the 100 metres at the 1976 Montreal Games, and the national stadium in Port of Spain now bears his name.
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Heritage · 1 August 1976
The last Governor-General became the first President.
Did you know that Trinidad and Tobago became a republic on 1 August 1976, and Sir Ellis Clarke, who had been the last Governor-General representing the British monarch, became the country's first President.
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Firsts · 16 July 1977
Janelle Commissiong was the first Black Miss Universe.
Did you know that Janelle Commissiong of Trinidad and Tobago, crowned in Santo Domingo in 1977, is described as the first Black woman to win Miss Universe, and her home country issued postage stamps in her honour.
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Society · 27 July 1990
A prime minister was shot during a coup.
Did you know that during the Jamaat al Muslimeen coup attempt of July 1990, Prime Minister A. N. R. Robinson was held hostage in Parliament's Red House and shot in the leg after urging the army to attack.
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Records · 1994
Brian Lara broke the Test record twice.
Did you know that Trinidad's Brian Lara is the only batter to break cricket's world Test record twice, with 375 in 1994 and 400 not out in 2004, and he also holds the first-class record of 501 not out.
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Records · 16 November 2005
T&T was once the smallest World Cup qualifier.
Did you know that Trinidad and Tobago's 1-0 win over Bahrain in Manama in November 2005 made it the smallest nation by population ever to reach a FIFA World Cup, a record that stood until Iceland qualified in 2018.
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Firsts · 26 May 2010
Kamla Persad-Bissessar was the first woman PM.
Did you know that Kamla Persad-Bissessar became Trinidad and Tobago's first female prime minister in 2010, and in May 2025 she returned for a second term after the United National Congress won 26 of 41 seats.
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Records · 11 August 2012
A 19-year-old won Olympic javelin gold.
Did you know that Keshorn Walcott won Olympic javelin gold in London in 2012 aged 19, becoming the event's youngest champion and the first Caribbean man to win an Olympic throwing event.
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Nature · 7 February 2024
An abandoned barge spilled oil off Tobago.
Did you know that the barge Gulfstream capsized off Tobago's south coast on 7 February 2024 with an estimated 35,000 barrels of fuel oil, fouling about 15 km of coastline while its towing tug vanished without a trace.
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Heritage · 25 February 2025
A steelpan replaced Columbus's ships on the arms.
Did you know that Trinidad and Tobago's new coat of arms, in use from 25 February 2025, replaced Columbus's three ships with a steelpan, though the old arms were allowed alongside it until 2031.
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Records · 17 March – 1 May 2025
Stuart Young served just six weeks.
Did you know that Stuart Young became Trinidad and Tobago's eighth prime minister on 17 March 2025 but lost the April general election, making him the shortest-serving prime minister in the country's history.
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Sport · September 2025
Walcott won world gold aged 32.
Did you know that Keshorn Walcott, Olympic javelin champion in 2012, won the 2025 World Championships title aged 32, making him the second-oldest men's javelin world champion in history.
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Records · 3 June 2026
181 countries voted T&T onto the Security Council.
Did you know that Trinidad and Tobago won a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2027–2028 on 3 June 2026, securing 181 votes in a single round of balloting.
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Records ·
The world's biggest natural asphalt lake is here.
Did you know that Pitch Lake at La Brea covers about 100 acres, is reported to be 250 feet deep and holds about 10 million tons of bitumen, making it the largest natural deposit of its kind in the world.
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Myth or fact ·
Legend says hummingbird-eaters were swallowed by pitch.
Did you know that a local legend says the Pitch Lake swallowed an Amerindian village after its people ate sacred hummingbirds holding their ancestors' souls, while linguists doubt the popular claim that Trinidad's old name meant Land of the Hummingbird.
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Nature ·
Two small islands host 472 bird species.
Did you know that 472 bird species have been recorded in Trinidad and Tobago, and the Asa Wright Nature Centre, founded in 1967, is famed for easy access to oilbirds, cave-dwelling birds that navigate by sonar.
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Nature ·
Each island has its own national bird.
Did you know that the country's two national birds split neatly between the islands: the scarlet ibis, coloured by carotenoids from shrimp, roosts in Trinidad's Caroni Swamp, while the cocrico, a chachalaca, lives on Tobago.
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Nature ·
Over 2,000 leatherbacks nest on one beach.
Did you know that more than 2,000 female leatherback turtles, the world's largest turtles, haul themselves onto Matura Beach in Trinidad each year to lay eggs, while villagers at Grande Riviere have guarded nests since 1992.
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Culture ·
The steelpan was born from oil drums.
Did you know that the steelpan, made from discarded 55-gallon oil drums from around 1947 and declared the national instrument in 1992, is often described as the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century.
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Economy ·
Angostura bitters contain no angostura bark.
Did you know that Angostura bitters, made in Port of Spain since 1875, were created as a tonic in Angostura, Venezuela, by a German army surgeon, and despite the name the famous recipe contains no angostura bark.
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Culture ·
Doubles got its name from customers wanting more.
Did you know that doubles, Trinidad's favourite street breakfast, was created in Princes Town in 1936 by Emamool Deen and his wife, and got its name when customers asked for a double portion of bara.
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Nature ·
Most Tobago visitors go to Buccoo Reef.
Did you know that Tobago's Buccoo Reef, a marine park since 1973 and a Ramsar wetland since 2005, is fed by nutrients from the Orinoco River, and tourism officials estimate that 90 percent of visitors go there.
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Records ·
Tobago protected its forest to make rain.
Did you know that Tobago's Main Ridge Forest Reserve, created on 30 April 1776 to attract frequent showers of rain, is often called the oldest legally protected forest reserve in the Western Hemisphere.
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Geography ·
Trinidad is a chip of South America.
Did you know that Trinidad sits on South America's continental shelf just 11 km from Venezuela and was joined to the mainland by land bridges, which is why roughly 65 of its 99 land mammal species are bats.
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Language ·
Bhojpuri survives in Trinidad songs and prayers.
Did you know that Trinidadian Hindustani, a Bhojpuri and Awadhi based tongue brought by indentured labourers, had largely given way to English by the late 1960s, yet survives in chutney music, prayers and Indian-derived place names.
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Language ·
Villagers in Paramin still speak French Creole.
Did you know that French Creole, spread by Catholic planters after the 1783 Cedula, was once widely spoken across Trinidad, and it survives mainly among elders in hill villages such as Paramin, Lopinot and Talparo.
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Myth or fact ·
Crusoe's island resembles Tobago, but who inspired it?
Did you know that Daniel Defoe set Robinson Crusoe's island near the mouth of the Orinoco, a description Tobago roughly matches, although the story is usually credited to Alexander Selkirk, marooned on Chile's Juan Fernández Islands.
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Heritage ·
A French count's cocoa estate became Lopinot.
Did you know that the village of Lopinot is named after Count Charles Joseph de Loppinot, a French general who fled the Haitian Revolution and planted cocoa there from 1806, and his ghost is said to haunt it.
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