Discovery of Australia and Aborigines

Who discovered Australia? This is still a mystery but according to the rumours, the first travellers from Europe to Australia were the Portuguese. There is even a rumour that they drew the map of the east shore but kept this as secret. Officially, the first person who arrived to Australia was Willem Janzoon from Holland. Janzoon arrived to Cape York, located at today's Queensland, in 1606. Following this, several researchers came to Australia between 1616 and 1640, and carried on numerous projects especially on the west coast. After a short time, Holland decided to investigate the south coast, resulting in the discovery of Tasmania by Abel Tasman. As the research went deeper, Holland noticed that the island was not as rich as expected so being disappointed, decided to leave although the map of most of the island had been drawn. Nevertheless, the island was called as 'New Holland' until the 19th century.

The English researchers also could not find anything useful and left the island after the Dutch. Captain James Cook was the first person ever who was impressed by the island after his research on the east coast in 1770. He called the region, where he first stepped on, as 'New Wales' which corresponds to today's Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. After the English colonization started, the name changed to 'New South Wales'.

'The first fleet', that arrived the island several years later, speeded up the discovery process and played an important role in the foundation of todays Australia.