Samar

List of the highest peaks on Samar island (in order of elevation).

• Mount Huraw 2,920 ft (890 m)
• Mount Capotoan 2,749 ft (838 m)
• Mount Mactaon 2,208 ft (673 m)
• Mount Pagcem 1,998 ft (609 m)
• Mount Yagcem 1,991 ft (607 m)
• Mount Canyaba 1,936 ft (590 m)
• Mount Bingo 1,798 ft (548 m)
• Mount Saamong 1,686 ft (514 m)
• Mount Bihag 1,486 ft (453 m)
• Mount Capoto-on 1,247 ft (380 m)

List of major rivers on Samar Island (in order of by length).

• Pambujan River 156 km (97 mi)
• Dolores River 105 km (65 mi)
• Catubig River 82.2 km (51.1 mi)
• Oras River 82 km (51 mi)
• Gandara River 77.4 km (48.1 mi)
• Victoria River 40 km (25 mi)

Samar was the first island of the Philippines sighted by the Spanish expedition led by Ferdinand Magellan. He sighted it on 16 March 1521, having sailed there from the Mariana Islands. Realizing he had arrived at an archipelago, he charted the islands, and called them San Lazaro (Saint Lazarus in English) because they were sighted on Lazarus Saturday. The Spaniards later called the island Filipinas, while the Portuguese called it Lequios. Although Samar was the first island of the Philippines sighted by Magellan, he did not land there. He continued south, weighed anchor at Suluan Island, and then finally, on 17 March 1521, he landed on Homonhon Island.[5]

Years later, other Spanish expeditions arrived. The historian William Henry Scott wrote that a "Samar datu by the name of Iberein was rowed out to a Spanish vessel anchored in his harbor in 1543 by oarsmen collared in gold; while wearing on his own person earrings and chains." Scott recounted a local saga, which the inhabitants called siday, about Bingi of Lawan, a prosperous Lakanate in Samar, and he also recorded that Datu Hadi Iberein came from the Lakanate of Lawan.[6]

The final campaign of the Philippine–American War (1899-1902) took place in Samar and is one of the best known, and most notorious, of the entire war. A combination of factors resulted in particularly violent clashes.

On September 28, 1901, Eugenio Daza, Area Commander of Southeastern Samar and Valeriano Abanador, the town's police chief, launched an attack on U.S. Army Company C 9th Infantry Regiment who were occupying Balangiga. The Filipino Forces brought one of the only Filipino victories of the war and the worst American defeat in decades.

In 1989, "Balangiga Encounter Day" was established as a provincial holiday in Eastern Samar to celebrate the Balangiga Encounter victory.[7][8]

The Balangiga Encounter resulted in the brutal March across Samar.

"I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn; the more you kill and burn, the better it will please me ... The interior of Samar must be made a howling wilderness ..." — Gen. Jacob H. Smith

Thousands of Filipinos were slaughtered by American Marines.

In his history of the war,[9] Brian McAllister Linn asserts "Samar cast a pall on the army's achievement and, for generations, has been associated in the public mind as typifying the Philippine War."

The waters off the east side of the island also hosted the Battle off Samar on October 25, 1944, wherein a small, unarmored force of United States Navy escorts fought off the center force of the Imperial Japanese Navy, including the Japanese battleship Yamato.