Christopher Columbus became the first European to discover St. John in 1493 while on his second voyage to the New World. The next two centuries were times of unsuccessful colonization attempts by the British, French and Spanish, among others, until 1694 when the Danish West India Company staked the winning claim. The Dutch ruled St. John until 1917, when the United States purchased St. John, St. Thomas and St. Croix for $25 million. In 1956, multimillionaire Laurence Rockefeller gifted 5,000 acres of land to the federal government that established the Virgin Islands National Park. The park now takes up two-thirds of St. John's total area.