sentences:  On 15 August 1432, men form a small sailing vessel with a dozen crew landed on the island that would bear the name Santa Maria (owing to its supposed day of its "rediscovery", the Assumption Day of the Virgin Mary).With their beginnings in the eastern group of islands, the explorers advanced quickly into the rest of the archipelago, finally reaching the more westerly islands (Flores and Corvo) by about 1450 at a time when populations were already relatively large.The first expeditions, apart from coastal observations and an occasional landing were limited, and in most cases involved the deliberate disembarking of herd animals (sheep, goats and/or cattle), pigs and chickens on the discovered islands, as a way of providing future settlers with some means of subsistence.