Katharina von Bora was the daughter of a Jan von Bora auf Lippendorf and his wife Margarete, whose family name has not been established. Both were only specifically mentioned in the year 1505. It is certain that her father sent the five-year-old Katharina to the Benedictine cloister in Brehna in 1504 for education. This is documented in a letter from Laurentius Zoch to Martin Luther, written on October 30, 1531. This letter is the only evidence for Katharina von Bora's time spent within the monastery. At the age of nine she moved to the Cistercian monastery of Marienthron (Mary's Throne) in Nimbschen, near
Bora Bora pronounced "Bola Bola" or "Bora Bora". When explorer Jacob Roggeveen first landed on the island, he and his crew adopted the name "Bora Bora" which has stood ever since. The island was inhabited by Polynesian settlers around the 4th century The first European sighting was made by Jakob Roggeveen in 1722. James Cook sighted the island on 29 July 1769, using a Tahitian navigator, Tupaia. The London Missionary Society arrived in 1820 and founded a Protestant church in 1890. Bora Bora was an independent kingdom until 1888 when its last queen Teriimaevarua III was forced to abdicate by the French