The federal government has quietly ended a 433-year-old historical controversy by officially recognizing a cove on the Point Reyes Peninsula as the site where Sir Francis Drake landed in 1579 and claimed California for England.

The mystery of where England's most famous and feared sea captain landed has long intrigued maritime scholars. Many of them claimed Drake landed in a cove near Point Reyes in what is now Marin County, but others cited what they said was evidence that Drake put ashore in spots ranging from San Francisco Bay to Alaska, Oregon, British Columbia or several other sites on the California coast....