biography
| name: |
Tasman, Abel Janszoon
|
pronunciation:
[tazmn]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1603–c.59)
|
| biography:
| Navigator, born near Groningen, The Netherlands. In the service of the East India Company, he was sent in quest of the ‘Great South Land’ by Antony van Diemen (1593–1645), Governor-General of Batavia, and in 1642 discovered the area he named Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand, followed by Tonga and Fiji (1643). He made a second voyage (1644) to the Gulf of Carpentaria and the NW coast of Australia, and was the first to sail around Australia. |
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