The Discovery of Australia
by A snapshot of how the Australian continent was discovered, of how the early European explorers discovered the land. About how Captain James Cook discovered New South Wales and how British colonization was started.
First Sightings
No one knew about America before Columbus. People in those days had heard about only three continents – Asia, Europe and Africa. After the discovery of America in 1492 by Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus no other new continent was heard of for more than a hundred years. Claims have been made that it was in the year 1605 that the Spanish or Portuguese sailor Luis Váez de Torres had the first sightings of a huge land in the southern Indian Ocean. However, it was in 1606 that the first documented and undisputed European landing of the Terra Australis Incognita (unknown southern land) was made by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon aboard the ship Duyfken.
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Initial Expeditions
In the initial years of Australian exploration, the land was called New Holland by the Dutch explorers. In the year 1642, a Dutch sailor named Abel Tasman set sail to find the new land. He landed in an island to the south of Australia. This island was later named Tasmania after his name. He did not realize that Tasmania was an island and mistook it as the much talked about new land. However, he did not get much chance to explore the land. Many Dutch sailors came to this island after Tasman. Nearly 50 years after this, an English sailor named William Dampier landed in the eastern coast of Australia. They found a beautiful green country out there. There were beautiful flowers, colorful birds and many strange animals. They saw a really strange animal which was larger than a man but which had a head like a mouse. This was the Western world’s first encounter with a Kangaroo. They found the locals to be tall and black and they did not wear clothes but leaves and tree barks.
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