The monument keeps the date
September 28, 1542. Cabrillo's three ships reach San Diego Bay. Cabrillo National Monument and California Historical Landmark #56 call it the first European landing on what is now the US West Coast.
What the date doesn't carry:
- He named the bay San Miguel. Vizcaíno overwrote that with San Diego sixty years later. San Miguel is now the island where Cabrillo died three months after this day, from a fall during a skirmish.
- The National Park Service's own history counts 103 days from his June 27 departure. June 27 plus 103 is October 8. The same agency keeps September 28.
- On that same page the landing itself is hedged: he “probably landed at Ballast Point.”
The monument keeps the date. The archive keeps the probably.
Sources: NPS Cabrillo history page; Wikipedia (Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo; Cabrillo National Monument); California Historical Landmark #56.