Exxon Valdez Exxon Valdez Oriental Nicety, formerly Exxon Valdez, Exxon Mediterranean, SeaRiver Mediterranean, S/R Mediterranean, Mediterranean, and Dong Fang Ocean, was an oil tanker that gained notoriety after running aground in Prince William Sound spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil in Alaska. On March 24, 1989, while owned by the former Exxon Shipping Company, and captained by Joseph Hazelwood and First Mate James Kunkel bound for Long Beach, California, the vessel ran aground on the Bligh Reef resulting in the second largest oil spill in United States history. The size of the spill is estimated to have been ,
Prince William Sound 1778 to honour George III's third son Prince William Henry, then aged 13 and serving as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. In 1793, Alexander Andreyevich Baranov founded port Voskresensk in the sound, which he called Chugach Bay. The first three-masted ship, "Phoenix", was the first ship built by the Russians in America. A 1964 tsunami, a result of the Good Friday earthquake, killed a number of Chugach villagers in the coastal village of Chenega and destroyed the town of Valdez. In 1989, the oil tanker "Exxon Valdez" ran aground on Bligh Reef after leaving Valdez, causing a large oil