15.11.2011 - 12:21
For some reason, most people believe in the myth that Australia was discovered at the end of the 18th century by James Cook, who was immediately eaten by many aborigines who were upset by this fact. But this is not true at all. Firstly, Cook died in the Hawaiian Islands, and secondly, Australia was discovered much earlier - the ancient Egyptians visited it!
Australis incognita
Even in Ancient Greece, separate opinions arose that somewhere in the ocean there should be some unknown southern continent. An active promoter of this idea was Ptolemy, who more than once misled the minds of the gullible ancient Greeks. He drew this continent on his map. Later they came up with a beautiful name for it - Terra australis incognita, the unknown southern land, and under this mysterious name it appeared on maps for many years, exciting the minds of researchers and sailors...
Many of them tried to find the alluring Terra australis, but all searches remained fruitless. The names of these unknown brave travelers, who set out at their own risk and risk to sail through unknown places, have sunk into eternity... Some of them returned to their homeland, while others died during storms, from skirmishes with the aborigines. But those who returned brought with them salted maps, on which new lands, islands, and archipelagos were marked with a trembling hand. However, Terra australis was never found. However, the western coast of the mainland appeared on one map of 1542 under the name of Great Java.
In the Middle Ages, interest in the still undiscovered southern continent did not fade. According to the theories existing at that time, it was believed that there simply had to be a huge continent in the Pacific Ocean, otherwise the Earth would inevitably capsize under the exorbitant weight of Europe, Asia and Africa...
Geographers even drew up a rough plan of this land. According to their assumptions, Terra australis had an area of as much as 180 square kilometers! (which is much larger than the actual size of Australia).
Many reigning persons showed interest in the southern continent, which simply had to contain countless treasures.
Expeditions were launched for the glory of kings and queens, but all attempts to find Terra australis incognita ended in failure.
New Holland
Only at the beginning of the 17th century did the situation change. In 1606, the Spaniard Luis de Torres returned to his homeland with stories of how he saw the “great southern continent.” He passed along New Guinea through the strait that later received his name. In the same year, the East India Company sent an expedition led by the Dutchman Willem Janszoon to explore New Guinea. The accelerated Janszon did not notice the mapped Torres Strait and ended up off the coast of Australia. For a long time he mistook these shores for New Guinea, and this is probably why his fame as the discoverer of Australia is so modest that few people know about it. Later this land was called New Holland, but no one believed that this was Terra australis incognita.
In Europe, Janszon's discovery caused almost no response. He did not bring stories about diamonds, gold mines, huge pearls and other riches and treasures. His reports and travel maps were kept in archives for a long time, and the world knew quite little about Yansozon. But we must admit that in Soviet encyclopedic dictionaries he always appeared precisely as the researcher who discovered Australia.
However, quite recently a sensational discovery was made off the coast of the mainland, after which history books will probably have to be rewritten. In 2002, a shipwreck covered in a thick layer of sand was discovered near Fraser Island, Australia. Research has shown that the ship belonged to the Spaniards or Portuguese, and it arrived on the shores of Australia around 1570, that is, several decades before Janszon!
And just recently, another name was added to the list of Australian discoverers. Australian journalist Peter Trickett has released his book in which he claims that Australia was discovered back in 1522 by the little-known Portuguese navigator Cristovao Mendonça. Trickett bought authentic maps from the early 16th century from a second-hand bookstore, which contain accurate and detailed images of the east coast of Australia, with legends in Portuguese. They show the surrounding area and coastline of Botany Bay in the Tasman Sea. The journalist believes that these maps were compiled after the journey of Cristovao Mendonça, which he carried out in 1522!
But despite these discoveries, millions of people still consider James Cook to be the discoverer of Australia. In 1768, the British Geographical Society sent an expedition led by Cook to the shores of Tahiti. The researchers were to conduct astronomical observations of Venus and, in addition, were tasked with finding Terra australis incognita.
In April 1770, Cook approached the eastern coast of Australia, where he discovered Botany Bay. The explorer sailed his ship along the entire east coast, named it New South Wales and declared it the property of the British crown. Soon he came across the Great Barrier Reef, where he crashed. In 1771, he returned to England as a winner - Terra australis incognita was finally discovered! But the mythical treasures were never found, and the British Empire decided to make this place a distant overseas prison...
Egyptians in Australia
The new continent was populated quite quickly, but in the first decades of the development of the former Terra australis incognita, no one was interested in its many mysteries. And in Australia there was something to be surprised about...
In 1837, the English geographer George Gray explored the western and southern coasts of the mainland. On the banks of the Glenelgu River he discovered a cave with images of human figures carved on the walls. To Gray's complete amazement, these figures did not look at all like the aborigines - strange clothes, aquiline noses, clear profiles... However, recently versions have begun to be put forward that these are representatives of some highly developed civilization or aliens - they are very unusual look...
But in the 19th century, Gray’s find did not make much of an impression, and it was remembered only in the 20th century. In 1931, the same mysterious rock paintings were found, not at all similar to ordinary Aboriginal art. A year later, archaeologists found several deep stone wells near Lake Mackay. The Australian aborigines could not build such a structure even in the 20th century, and these wells were clearly of ancient origin.
Every decade brought new mysterious discoveries. The information that a coin he found deep in the ground lay in the house of one farmer for several years became a sensation. To the shock of archaeologists, it turned out that the coin was made in Ancient Egypt in the 3rd millennium BC! Later, a pebble was found that was absolutely identical to the figurines of the Egyptian sacred scarab beetles.
All these finds allowed the English professor and anthropologist Grafton Eliot Smith to suggest that the Egyptians visited Australia in ancient times.
This version was also confirmed by the strange custom of some local tribes - they mummified the dead. And more recently it turned out that eucalyptus oil, made from trees growing only in northeastern Australia, was used to embalm some Egyptian mummies.
All these finds made it possible to find an answer to a mystery that has long interested Egyptologists. For a long time they were worried about the question - why on the walls of several Egyptian temples are depicted people who are not similar to any of the peoples conquered by the Egyptians. These are probably the inhabitants of the mysterious Terra australis incognita, the honor of the discovery of which can now be given to the ancient Egyptians... However, as we have already mentioned above, supporters of the theory of paleocontacts believe that both Australian rock paintings and ancient Egyptian drawings depict some unknown gods from other planets. ..
Interesting Facts:
In 1642, the governor of the East Indies, Van Diemen, equipped an expedition to search for uncharted lands in the western part of the Pacific Ocean... The expedition was led by the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman. Three months later, exhausted people reached an unknown land, which Tasman named Van Diemen's Land in honor of his patron. It later turned out that this is a large island, which now bears the name of its discoverer - Tasmania. It is interesting that during that voyage Tasman could have discovered Australia, but bypassed it.
The most pressing issue for sailors of the past was always the issue of food. During the long voyage under the hot sun, almost all food spoiled, and people were forced to eat only crackers and corned beef for many months. From monotonous and inadequate food, sailors fell ill with scurvy and other diseases, and died in dozens. James Cook became an innovator in the field of equipping expeditions with food. He was the first to come up with the idea of taking dried fruits and vegetables on voyages, and thanks to his diet, Cook’s team never suffered from scurvy while traveling for years...
Another notable figure in the development of Australia is the Englishman Charles Sturt. In 1827, he arrived on the mainland with a group of convicts. But at the same time he dreamed of discoveries and adventures. A few years later he undertook an expedition into the interior of the country. It was he who discovered the Darling River, which he named after the governor of the colony. Probably, the governor liked this so much that he granted Sturt 2000 hectares of land near modern Canberra. Inspired, Sturt continued his explorations and discovered a desert named Sturt Stone Desert in his honor.
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History of discovery. Man appeared in Australia 40 thousand years ago. These were newcomers from South and Southeast Asia, the predecessors of modern aborigines. Having settled in the eastern part of Australia, people also entered Tasmania. The fact that Tasmanians are descendants of ancient Australians is confirmed by recent archaeological finds on Hunter Island in Bass Strait.
Assumptions about the existence of the mysterious Terra incognita Australis - “Unknown Southern Land” south of the equator were expressed by ancient geographers. A vast area of land in the southern hemisphere was depicted on maps in the 15th century, although its outline did not resemble Australia in any way. The Portuguese had some information regarding the northern coasts of Australia back in the 16th century; they came from the inhabitants of the Malay Islands, who visited the coastal waters of the mainland to catch sea cucumbers. However, until the 17th century, no Europeans managed to see Australia with their own eyes.
The discovery of Australia has long been associated with the name of the English navigator James Cook. In fact, the first Europeans to visit the coast of this continent and meet scattered Aboriginal tribes here were the Dutch: Willem Janszoon in 1605 and Abel Tasman in 1642. Janszon crossed the Torres Strait and sailed along the coast of the Cape York Peninsula, while Tasman discovered the southwestern part of Tasmania, which he considered part of the mainland. And the Spaniard Torres in 1606 sailed through the strait that separates the island of New Guinea from the mainland.
However, the Spaniards and Dutch kept their discoveries secret. James Cook sailed to the east coast of Australia only one hundred and fifty years later, in 1770, and immediately declared it an English possession. A royal “penal colony” was created here for criminals, and later for exiled participants in the Chartist movement in England. Representatives of the English authorities, who sailed to the shores of Australia with the “first fleet” in 1788, founded the city of Sydney, which was subsequently proclaimed the administrative center of the British colony of New South Wales, created in 1824. With the arrival of the “second fleet,” the first free migrants appeared. The development, or rather the seizure of the mainland, begins, accompanied by the most brutal extermination of the indigenous population. A hunt was organized for the aborigines, and bonuses were given for those killed. Often the colonists staged real raids on the indigenous people of Australia, killing them without distinction of gender or age, scattering poisoned food, after which people died in terrible agony. It is not surprising that after a hundred years most of the indigenous population was exterminated. The remaining aborigines were driven from the land of their ancestors and pushed into the interior desert regions. In 1827, England announced the establishment of its sovereignty over the entire continent.
The end of the 18th and the entire 19th century for Australia was a time of geographical discoveries. In 1797, the talented English hydrographer M. Flinders began exploring the coasts of the continent, whose work is rated as highly by Australian geographers as Cook's discoveries. He confirmed the existence of the Bass Strait, examined the coasts of Tasmania and South Australia, the entire eastern and northern coast of the mainland, and mapped the Great Barrier Reef. Flinders proposed giving the continent the name “Australia”, replacing the previously accepted designation on maps “New Holland”, which was finally superseded in 1824.
By the 19th century, the outlines of the mainland were largely mapped, but the interior remained a blank spot. The first attempt to penetrate into the interior of Australia was made in 1813 by an expedition of English colonists who discovered a passage through the Blue Mountains and discovered magnificent grazing lands to the west of the Great Dividing Range. A “land fever” began: a stream of free settlers poured into Australia, seizing huge areas where they organized sheep farms of many thousands. This land grab is called “squatterism.”
The prospecting parties moved further and further to the west, south and north, crossing the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers. In 1840, P. Strzelecki discovered the highest peak of the continent in the Australian Alps, which he named Mount Kosciuszko in honor of the national hero of Poland.
More than a dozen large expeditions were equipped to explore the Australian Interior, and attempts were made to cross the continent. Significant discoveries in the interior of the continent belong to Charles Sturt, who first discovered the Darling River and the Simpson Desert. Significant discoveries in the southeast were made by D. Mitchell, in the west by D. Gray; W. Leichgard traveled from the Darling Range to the northern coast, but three years later, while trying to cross the continent from east to west, his expedition went missing in the endless deserts of Central Australia.
For the first time, R. Burke managed to cross the continent from south to north, leading a well-equipped expedition in 1860–1861. Burke walked from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria, but on the way back he died along with his companion W. Wills. D. Stewart managed to cross the continent twice, passing through the hottest places in the central deserts.
By the end of the 19th century, the exploration of inland Australia was completed.
At the very beginning of the 19th century, a convict colony was founded in Tasmania; free settlers appeared on the island later, only in the 20s of the 19th century, and then extermination campaigns against the Tasmanian aborigines began. Just a decade later, most of the Tasmanians were exterminated. The last Tasmanian woman died in 1876.
The period of discovery in Tasmania lasted until 1843. By this time, not only the coasts, but also the central regions had been surveyed, work began on a continuous large-scale survey of the territory, and in the 70s large deposits of tin, gold and rare metals were discovered on the island.
The first settlers who arrived in Australia did not find anything similar to the landscapes of England. They perceived neither the beauty of the malga (acacia bushes) nor the splendor of the eucalyptus forests. The colonists did everything to ensure that the landscapes they found themselves in became as similar as possible to the parks and pastures of England.
Until the mid-19th century, the development of Australian territories was slow. The exiles who arrived on the first ships brought with them seeds and plant seedlings, which they began to grow in the poor sandy soils around the first settlement on the site of modern Sydney. Agriculture was slash-and-burn; organic fertilizers were not used, since there were no livestock. During the year, two crops were harvested - wheat and corn; when the harvests fell, the plot was abandoned.
Gradually, farmers began to move from the areas of initial development on the southeast coast, following pastoralists inland, north to the tropical coast, changing old crops and introducing new ones. From 1850 to 1914, Australian farmers developed the best land on the continent. The most fertile soils were almost completely occupied by wheat, and sugar cane began to be grown further north, on the alluvial plains near the Tropic of Capricorn.
At the same time, cattle breeding began to move into the interior of Australia, first to the relatively water-logged areas of the open forests of the southeast, and then to the arid regions of Central Australia.
An important milestone in the development of the country was the middle of the last century, when gold was found in several places at once - first in the states of Victoria and New Wales, and then in Western Australia. At this time, a stream of settlers, mainly English and Irish, rushed to Australian soil.
The “Gold Rush”, as well as the spread of extensive sheep farming over large areas of land, led to rapid economic development, population growth and administrative registration of the colonies. In the 70s, there were already six separate colonies in Australia: New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland, which fought for self-government. Between 1873 and 1883, negotiations were held between the colonies to create a federation, which culminated in 1889 with the development of a draft constitution.
Abel Tasman- Dutch navigator, explorer and merchant. He received worldwide recognition for the sea voyages he led in 1642-1644. He was the first among famous European explorers to reach the shores of New Zealand, Tonga and Fiji. The data collected during his expeditions helped prove the fact that Australia is a separate continent.
Abel Janszoon Tasman was born in 1603 in the village of Luttegast near Groningen (now the municipality of Grotegast in the province of Groningen) in the Netherlands. The exact date of his birth is unknown. The first documentary mention of him dates back to 1631, when he, already widowed by that time, married again. As follows from the surviving church record, his wife was illiterate and came from a poor family, which indirectly confirmed the validity of the assumptions of researchers of his biography about his low social status at that time.
Presumably at the same time, Abel Tasman entered the service of the Dutch East India Company as a simple sailor, but already in the records of 1634 he appears as the skipper (captain) of one of the company's ships. The main occupation of the company's sailors at that time was servicing the transportation of spices and spices, which were expensive and valuable goods for the European market.
In 1638, Tasman, commanding a ship, sailed to India.
In 1639, Tasman led one of two ships (together with M. Quast) equipped by the East India Company to explore shipping areas in the region of Japan and trade opportunities with the local population. In general, this expedition was not successful and after 6 months spent at sea, Tasman's ship, having lost almost 40 of the 90 crew members, returned to the Dutch fort Zealand on the island of Formosa (Taiwan). During this voyage he discovered the island of Bonin.
In 1640, Tasman again led one of 11 Dutch ships heading to the shores of Japan. This time he spent about three months in the Japanese port of Hirado.
In 1642, Tasman was appointed commander of a detachment of two ships of the East India Company, sent to explore the southern and eastern waters of the Pacific Ocean. According to the hypotheses of geographers and navigators of that era, it was these waters that should have washed the shores of the mythical Unknown Southern Land, the possible wealth of which was told for several generations. During this voyage, on November 24, 1642, Tasman discovered a large island (Tasmania) off the coast of Australia and named it Van Diemen's Land in honor of the governor of the Netherlands East Indies. Having followed several dozen miles along the coast of the island, Tasman turned east and on December 13 saw the outlines of another unfamiliar land. This was the South Island belonging to New Zealand. While staying near this island, Europeans first met the Maori, the indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand. The meeting ended tragically: the Maori attacked the landing Dutch, killed several sailors and disappeared. Annoyed by this incident, Tasman named this place Killer Bay (now Golden Bay).
Continuing along the western coast of the North Tasman Island, he reached its tip and turned northeast. On January 21, 1643, the expedition reached the Tonga archipelago, discovering several previously unknown islands here. Having replenished Tonga's supplies of water and food, on February 6 Tasman's ships approached the islands of the Fiji archipelago. Further, leaving the Fiji islands to the south, Tasman walked along the northern coast of New Guinea and on June 15, after almost a ten-month journey, arrived in Batavia.
In 1643, Tasman led a detachment of three ships of the East India Company that sailed along the western coast of New Guinea and the northern coast of Australia. As a result, much of the coast of northern Australia was mapped for the first time.
From the point of view of the leadership of the East India Company, the voyages of detachments of ships under the command of Tasman in 1642-1644 ended in complete failure - new trading areas were never discovered and no new sea passages were found for navigation. Until the travels of the British navigator James Cook almost 100 years later, Europeans had not begun to explore New Zealand, and visits to Australia were sporadic and most often caused by shipwrecks. After the expedition returned to Batavia, Tasman was given the rank of commander and his salary was raised, and he himself was appointed a member of the Legal Council of Batavia. In 1647, he was sent as a representative to the King of Siam, and in 1648 he led a detachment of 8 ships that opposed the ships of the Spanish fleet
Around 1651, Abel Tasman retired and began trading in Batavia.
Relief. Australia is the flattest continent. Most of it is a plain, the edges of which are raised, especially in the east. Mountains occupy only 5% of the continent's territory. The average height of the continent is 340-350 m above sea level. In the structure of its surface, three areas are clearly expressed: the Western Australian Plateau with a height of 400-500 m, the Central Lowland, where the lowest point of the continent is located in the area of Lake Eyre (-12 m below sea level), and the medium-altitude Great Dividing Range in the east with the highest point of the continent (Mount Kosciuszko, 2228 m).
The geological structure of Australia is the simplest in comparison with other continents. The continent consists of ancient Precambrian and young
Epihercynian platforms, occupying the western and central territory, and a much smaller folded belt of Liznoproterozoic and Paleozoic age in the east.
The Australian platform is one of the largest on Earth. A distinctive feature of its structure is the alternation of protrusions of the ancient foundation and depressions. Protrusions of metamorphosed and volcanic rocks of the folded basement form three shields - Zahidno-Australian, Pivnichno-Australian and Shvdenno-Australian. Within the first of them, the oldest rocks were found, formed more than 3 billion years ago.
“The eastern part of the continent from the Cape York Peninsula in the north to the island of Tasmania in the south has the Shidno-Australian folded region.
Geological structures determined the differences in surface shapes of the western and eastern parts of the continent.
The Central Lowland is located in the zone of the meridional trough of the Australian Platform. Here the relief is dominated by lowlands, confined to areas of greatest subsidence of the platform foundation - the Lake Eyre basin, the Murray basin and the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Mountainous types of relief are almost not common in Australia. In the southeast, the Western Australian Plateau is bordered by the low (700 - 900 m) blocky mountains of Flinders and Mount Lofty. Flat-topped rises are broken by grabens, which go under water and form the Gulfs of Spencer and St. Vincent. There are mountains in the center of Australia - McDonnelly and Musgrave,
The mountain belt of Eastern Australia is formed by the Great Dividing Range and the mountains of Tasmania. These low folded-block mountain structures were formed as a result of Neogene tectonic movements. The eastern slopes of the mountains are steep, the western slopes are gentle. A feature of the Great Dividing Range is the displacement of the main watershed from the higher eastern
ridges to flat-topped low-mountain plateaus in the west.
Australia is rich in mineral resources. The crystalline rocks of the platform's foundation contain iron, copper, lead-zinc, uranium ores, and gold. Minerals of sedimentary origin include deposits of phosphorites, rock salt, hard and brown coal, oil, and natural gas. Many deposits lie at shallow depths, so they are mined by open-pit mining. Australia ranks among the first in the world in terms of reserves of iron ores, non-ferrous metal ores (bauxite, lead, zinc, nickel) and uranium.
Climate. Australia is the driest continent on Earth; three quarters of its surface has insufficient moisture. The climatic conditions on the continent are determined by its position near the equator, on both sides of the tropics. It was the hot tropical sun that caused the formation of extensive deserts on the continent.
Compared to South Africa and South America, south of the equator, Australia is more “stretched” from west to east. With a weakly dissected coastline, this causes constantly high temperatures in the interior and gives the right to consider it the hottest part of the land in the southern hemisphere.
The main territory of Australia is located in three climatic zones - from the subequatorial in the north, in the tropical for the main part, in the subtropical in the south, and climatologists classify the island of Tasmania as a temperate zone.
From December to February (summer in the southern hemisphere), the continent warms up greatly, especially its central parts; This is the hot season of the year. In the Alice Springs area (center of Australia) and in the adjacent deserts, average daytime air temperatures are about 35-36 degrees, and on some days even above +40. In winter, daytime temperatures here are almost two times lower - about +20 degrees, in the Great Victoria Desert - up to +10 degrees, and in some years night frosts are possible.
In inland areas, the influx of moist air from the north leads in summer to rare rains, which, in general, are of little effect. South 19-20o S. w. precipitation falls no more than 300 mm, and semi-deserts and deserts dominate.
On the West Coast - in Perth, the climate is somewhat milder due to the influence of the ocean - in summer there is usually thirty-degree heat, in winter the air cools to +18...+20 degrees during the day and +6...+8 at night.
The most inhabited region of Australia, the southeast coast, has a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and rainy, mild winters. So, in Melbourne in summer, on typical January days, the thermometer usually stays around +25..+27 degrees, and in winter it drops to +10...+12, at night to +5.
In the coolest part of the country - on the island of Tasmania - a typical British climate reigns - in summer the daytime temperature is +20...+22, in winter it is ten degrees cooler. In winter, night frosts occur, but a stable snow cover does not form here - throughout the region, snow falls steadily only on the tops of the mountains.
What is the history of Australia? Let us briefly consider the events associated with its discovery. Some researchers have expressed their assumptions that the first Europeans to reach the shores of Australia at the beginning of the seventeenth century were the Portuguese.
What is the history of discovery and exploration of Australia? This information is briefly presented in encyclopedias, but they do not contain interesting points that confirm travelers’ interest in this territory. Among the evidence that it was the Portuguese who became the discoverers of Australia, the following arguments can be cited:
- The Dieppe maps, which were published in mid-16th century France, show a large area of land between Antarctica and Indonesia called Java la Grande. All explanations and symbols on the map are in Portuguese and French.
- At the beginning of the sixteenth century, there were Portuguese colonies in Southeast Asia. For example, the island of Timor, which is located 650 kilometers from the Australian coast, was attributed specifically to Portuguese travelers.
French "trace"
What other interesting facts does the history of the discovery of Australia and Oceania contain? Let us briefly tell you that the French navigator Binot Polmier de Gonneville said that it was he who landed on unknown lands near the Cape of Good Hope in 1504. This happened after his ship was blown off its intended course by the winds. Thanks to this statement, it was this traveler who was long credited with the discovery of Australia. After some time, it was found out that he ended up on the coast of Brazil.
Discovery of Australia by the Dutch
Let's continue the conversation about the history of the discovery of Australia and Oceania. Let us briefly dwell on the first indisputable fact documented in the winter of 1606. The expedition of the Dutch East India Company, led by Willem Janson, managed to land on the coast with his comrades aboard the ship "Golubok". After sailing from the island of Java, they went to the southern part of New Guinea, moving along it; after some time, the Dutch expedition managed to reach the shores of the Cape York Peninsula, located in the northern part of Australia. The crew members were confident that they were still off the coast of New Guinea.
It is the history of the development of Australia that is briefly discussed in the school course on geography. The expedition did not see which divides the coasts of Australia and New Guinea. On February 26, team members landed near what is now the city of Weipa. The Dutch were immediately attacked by the aborigines. Later, Janson and his people explored about 350 kilometers of the Australian coast, sometimes making landings. His crew constantly ran into hostile natives, so several Dutch sailors were killed during brutal battles with the natives. The captain decided to return. He never realized that he and his team managed to discover a new continent. Since Janson, in describing his exploration of the coast, described it as a swampy and deserted place, no one attached much importance to his new discovery. The East India Company sent expeditions in the hope of enriching themselves with jewelry and spices, and not at all for serious geographical discoveries.
Luis Vaez de Torres
Briefly describing the history of the exploration of Australia, we can also talk about how this traveler moved through the same strait through which Janson’s team first passed. Geographers have assumptions that Torres and his comrades managed to visit the northern coast of the continent, but written evidence of this hypothesis has not been found. After some time, the strait began to be called Torres Strait in honor of Luis Vaez de Torres.
Notable expeditions
The history of the discovery and exploration of Australia is also of interest, briefly telling the story of the journey of another ship of the Dutch East India Company, captained by Dirk Hartog. In 1616, the ship managed to reach the western coast of Australia, near Shark Bay. For three days, the sailors explored the coast and also explored the islands located nearby. The Dutch did not find anything interesting, so Hartog decided to continue sailing, heading north along the coastline, which had not been explored before. The team then headed to Batavia.
Where is the history of the discovery of Australia described? Briefly 7th grade is studying information about expeditions here from Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. For example, teachers talk about how in 1619 Jacob d'Erdel and Frederic de Houtman set out on two ships to explore the Australian coast. As they moved north, they discovered a strip of reefs called Houtman Rock.
Continuing research
After this expedition, other Dutch sailors repeatedly found themselves off these shores, calling the land New Holland. They did not even try to explore the coast, since they did not find any commercial interest here.
The beautiful coastline, even if it aroused their curiosity, clearly did not stimulate them to explore what useful resources Australia has. The history of the country briefly describes the exploration of the northern and western coasts. The Dutch concluded that the northern lands were infertile and unsuitable for use. Sailors did not see the eastern and southern coasts at that time, so Australia was undeservedly considered uninteresting for use.
First buildings
In the summer of 1629, the East India Company ship Batavia found itself at the Houtman Rocks due to a shipwreck. Soon there was a mutiny, as a result of which part of the crew built a small fort for protection. It became the first European building in Australia. Geographers suggest that at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, about fifty European ships reached the territory of Australia.
The history of the exploration and settlement of Australia briefly tells about the discoveries made by ships. In 1642, he tried to circumnavigate New Holland from the south, and discovered an island called Van Diemen's Land. After some time it was renamed Tasmania. With subsequent advancement to the east, after some time, the ships ended up near New Zealand. Tasman's first voyage was not successful; the travelers failed to get closer to Australia.
The history of Australia briefly tells us that only in 1644 Tasman was able to study the north-west coast in detail, to prove that all the lands that were discovered and analyzed in earlier expeditions were parts of one continent.
English Studies
The history of Australia briefly notes the English contribution to its research. Until the second half of the seventeenth century, there was practically no information in England about the lands that were discovered by Dutch travelers. In 1688, a pirate ship carrying the Englishman William Dampier ended up on the northwest coast, near Lake Melville. This fact has been preserved by the history of Australia. Briefly, the surviving records say that after repairs the ship returned to England. Here Dampier published a story about the journey, which aroused genuine interest among the English Admiralty.
In 1699, Dampier set out on a second voyage to the coast of Australia on the ship Roebuck. But during this trip he did not find anything interesting, so the Admiralty decided to stop funding the expedition.
Cook's Expedition
When telling the history of the discovery of Australia, one cannot leave without due attention the expedition of 1170, led by Lieutenant James Cook. On the sailing ship "Attempt" his team went to the South Pacific Ocean. The official purpose of the expedition was to make astronomical observations, but in fact Cook received tasks from the Admiralty to study the southern part of the continent. Cook believed that since New Holland has a western coast, it follows that there must be an eastern one.
At the end of April 1770, an English expedition landed on the eastern coast of Australia. The landing site was first called Stingray Bay, then it was renamed Botany Bay because of the unusual plants that were found there.
The discovered lands were named New Wales by Cook, and then the New Englishman did not even realize how large-scale the discovery he had made was.
British colonies
They decided to colonize the lands that Cook had discovered, using them as the first colonies for convicts. The fleet, led by Captain Arthur Philip, included 11 ships. He arrived in Australia in January 1788, but, recognizing the region as inconvenient for settlement, they moved north. Governor Philip issued an order that created the first British colony in Australia. The soils around Sydney Harbor were not suitable for farming, so farms were established near the Parramatta River.
The second fleet, which arrived in Australia in 1790, brought various materials and supplies here. During the voyage, 278 convicts and crew members died, which is why history calls it the “Deadly Fleet.”
In 1827, a small British settlement was built at King Georges Sound by Major Edmund Lockyer. He became the first governor of a colony created for convicts.
South Australia was founded in 1836. It was not intended for convicts, but some former prisoners moved here from other colonies.
Conclusion
It was developed almost fifty thousand years before its official discovery by European travelers. For centuries, people with their own unique culture and religion lived in the arid deserts and tropical jungles of the continent. After the colonization of the Australian coast, a period of active exploration of the territory began. Among the first serious researchers who managed to study the beds of the Macquarie and Lochlan rivers, geographers call John Oxley. Robert Burke became the first Englishman to cross the mainland from north to south. The discovery of Australia was the result of centuries-long searches by the Dutch, Portuguese, and British of the southern country.
In 2006, archaeologists discovered ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs in Australia. This fact led to the formulation of an original hypothesis about the opening of a contingent by the Egyptians.
Scientists have agreed that the most likely time for the discovery of Australia can be considered 1606. It was then that the famous Dutchman V. Janszoon explored the northeastern part - the Cape York Peninsula.
The history of the settlement of Australia is briefly outlined in this material. Until now, it is associated with numerous mysteries that scientists have yet to solve. For example, cannons discovered during archaeological excavations suggest that the Portuguese visited this territory in the fifteenth century. Scientists managed to draw up a complete map of the British colony, which was Australia, only at the beginning of the last century.
Australia is the smallest and furthest continent from Eurasia. During the Middle Ages it was called Terra Australis Incognita, which translated meant “unknown southern land.” Who discovered the mainland of Australia, and in what year did this happen?
Official version
Humanity became aware of the new territory thanks to the traveler and navigator James Cook. His goals included studying the passage of Venus through the solar disk. It is assumed that the real reason for Cook's trip was the search for uncharted lands in the southern latitudes of Terra Australis Incognita. He set out on a trip around the world and discovered distant lands, reaching the coast of the mainland in 1770. This date is considered historically accurate. But the existence of a piece of land “at the ends of the earth” was known much earlier. In addition, there were human settlements there. It is difficult to determine the date of their foundation; approximately it happened 40 - 60 thousand years ago. Artifacts found in western Australia on the Swan River date back to that period.
Who discovered the mainland of Australia in prehistoric times?
Scientists suggest that the first travelers to travel to land by ocean were the ancient Egyptians. They brought eucalyptus oil from these regions.
This version is confirmed by cave paintings with insects similar to Egyptian sacred scarabs. In addition, mummies were found in tombs in Egypt, embalming them with oil from eucalyptus trees grown in Australia.
However, all these theories are not officially accepted, since the existence of a continent lost in the sea in Europe became known much later.
Who first discovered Australia?
Attempts to reach the continent were made several times. In the 16th century, the Portuguese set off on the sea route. In 1509 they reached the Moluccas, and in 1522 they found themselves on the northwestern coast. These dates are considered the first time the continent was founded by Europeans.
There is also a hypothesis that Australia was discovered by Admiral Willem Janszoon, who arrived on the continent on behalf of the Dutch authorities. He undertook a campaign in 1605. The ship Dyfken was equipped for this purpose. He followed the direction of New Guinea and after three months of travel reached the Cape York Peninsula. The navigator compiled a detailed map of the coast with a length of 320 km. He did not even suspect that he had discovered a new continent, considering the lands to be the territories of New Guinea. Therefore they were given the name "New Holland".
Abel Tasman sailed after him to the mainland. He explored the islands on the west coast and plotted their outlines on the world map. One of the islands, Tasmania, is named after the discoverer.
Thus, by the 17th century, thanks to the efforts of Dutch travelers, the position of the continent of Australia and its islands on the world map became known.
There is still debate in the world about who discovered Australia. Some claim that this is James Cook, a navigator from England. Others believe that the discoverers of the continent were the Danes, looking for a way to their colony in Java.
In general, they appeared here long before the Europeans. More than forty thousand years ago, this continent was chosen by people from the southern regions of Asia. The mysterious terra incognita australius (unknown southern land) - ancient geographers still knew about it. Already in the fifteenth century, they marked a mysterious continent on maps. True, the outlines of this vast land area on them do not in any way resemble the real Australia.
The Portuguese also enter into the debate about who discovered Australia, claiming that Portuguese sailors received information about the new continent back in the sixteenth century from the aborigines of the Malay Islands, who caught sea cucumbers in the coastal waters of an unknown continent. But the first European set foot on Australian soil only in the seventeenth century.
The history of the discovery of Australia has long been associated with the name of Cook, but still the Dutch are considered the first inhabitants of Europe to visit the green continent (as Australia is sometimes called). It is not for nothing that the western part of this amazing continent later became known as New Holland.
In 1605, Willem Janszoon from Holland, who crossed sailed along the Cape York Peninsula. A year after this, Torres from Spain discovered the strait that separates the island from the continent. In 1642, the Dane visited the southwestern part of Tasmania, considering it part of Australia. Both Janszon and Tasman met Aboriginal people on the mainland.
And the Dutch, and the Spaniards, and the Danes did not publicly announce the discovery of a new continent. It is precisely because of the secrecy of the discoverers that the question of who discovered Australia is now disputed by the British, who came to this land 150 years after the first Europeans.
In 1770, the ships of James Cook landed on the east coast of Australia, who immediately proclaimed the new lands as English possessions. Soon a royal “penal colony” was created here for criminal elements, and a little later for English political exiles.
In 1788, the British, who arrived with the “first fleet” on Australian soil, founded the city of Sydney, which later became the center of the British colony. The first free settlers arrived with the “second fleet” and began to energetically explore the expanses of the green continent.
The continent, originally called “New Holland”, by the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, with the light hand of the English hydrographer Flinders, began to be called “Australia”. The Aborigines by this time had been brutally exterminated by the colonialists. There were raids and hunts, the natives were poisoned, and bonuses were paid for those killed. Already a hundred years after the appearance of the British on the mainland, most of the local inhabitants were exterminated, and the survivors were driven into the central regions of the continent, lifeless and deserted.
More recently, new facts have become known. So, even before James Cook, another Briton visited this southern continent - William Dampier. And in 1432, the Chinese navigator Zeng He visited Australia.
Yet none of the modern world powers can be considered the country that opened the green continent to the world. They were the first to visit here, long before the Europeans. They used eucalyptus oil for mummification, a tree that grew only in the northeast of Australia. And on the rocks of this continent you can find ancient images of scarabs - the sacred beetles of Ancient Egypt.
So, the question of who discovered Australia is a very controversial issue that historians are still struggling with.
