Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sights modern day Tasmania - November 24th, 1642

On this day in 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman recorded the first European sighting of the island now known as Tasmania.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio, Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that discovers something new about history every day.

(00:22):
I'm Gabe Louzier, and in this episode, we're talking about
the time when a European explorer got lost while searching
for a mythical land and wound up finding the island
of Tasmania instead. The day was November two. Dutch explorer

(00:48):
Able Tasman recorded the first European sighting of the island
now known as Tasmania. He noted the discovery and his
journal entry for that day, writing quote, in the afternoon,
about four o'clock we saw land bearing east by north
of us at about ten miles distance. The land we

(01:11):
cited was very high. The next day the crew sailed
along the shoreline and Tasman gave the island a new name.
He didn't name it after himself, though that came later. Instead,
Tasman named it after the man who had financed their expedition,
the governor general of the powerful trade hub known as

(01:32):
the Dutch East India Company. He marked the occasion in
his journal, writing quote, this land being the first land
we have met with in the South Sea, and not
known to any European nation. We have conferred on it
the name of Anthony van Damon's Land, in honor of
the Honorable Governor General, our illustrious Master, who sent us

(01:55):
to make this discovery. In the weeks ahead, Tasman and
his crew would also discover the island of staten Land,
better known today as New Zealand, as well as Fiji, Tonga,
and several other Pacific islands. These were big discoveries in
their own right, but they weren't what Tasmin had been

(02:15):
sent to find. His true mission was to explore a
mysterious southern land known as Tara Australis a k a. Australia,
which was still largely unknown to Europeans by sixty two.
Dutch explorers knew there was some kind of large land
mass somewhere far to the south, but no one had

(02:38):
ever mapped or explored it. This uncertainty made the Southern
continent into a kind of legendary land. Some geographers of
the era went a little wild with their speculation. They
suggested that Tara Australis might be a massive stretch of
dry ground that covered the entire lower half of the hebe. This,

(03:01):
they argued, would almost have to be the case, because
how else could the southern hemisphere counterbalance the northern one.
In the end, they misjudged the size of Australia just
a little and able. Tasman didn't end up finding the
mainland until a second trip two years later. The annoying

(03:22):
part is he came incredibly close to finding it the
first time. By early December, Tasmin was just about two
hundred miles south of what's now Victoria, Australia. If it
weren't for bad weather, he could have kept sailing north
and bumped right into it instead. A full picture of
the southern continent wouldn't come into focus until over a

(03:45):
century later, when British sailors found what other explorers had
just missed. But even without a sighting of Australia, Tasman's
first voyage was still eventful. After he and his crew
cited tasm Mania on November, they spent the next week
exploring the island's southern coast as they dodged bad weather

(04:07):
and searched for a safe place to land. On December one,
they finally laid anchor and spent the next few days
exploring the island interior, The crew was grateful to find
fresh water and edible plants, which Tasman described as quote
refreshments for our own behoof. During their time on the island,

(04:28):
they reported hearing voices and seeing rising smoke and other
signs of human life, but they never actually met the
indigenous people of Van Damon's land. Still, even without a
true encounter, Tasman's reporting on the inhabitants effectively ended their
fourteen thousand year isolation streak. It must have been nice

(04:50):
while it lasted. Able. Tasman definitely got a bit turned
around while searching for Terra Ostrallis, but he still managed
to make some note double discoveries. For Europe. He charted
hundreds of miles of coastline, helped fill in some blank
spots on the map, and pretty much disproved the idea
of a dry supercontinent that wraps all around the globe. Sadly,

(05:14):
his patrons at the Dutch East India Company didn't see
it that way. Since Tasmin hadn't established any new trade
routes or trading posts, the company considered his voyages a flop,
including his later expedition where he actually made it to
the northern coastline of present day Australia, too little, too late, apparently.

(05:36):
As for the island he accidentally discovered on that day
in late November, it was eventually colonized by the British
in the early nineteenth century. The colonists kept the name
Van Damon's Land, but it was subsequently changed after the
island became self governing in the mid eighteen fifties. By
that time, the British military had nearly wiped out the

(06:00):
Aboriginal inhabitants of the island. The old name had become
synonymous with those atrocities, so the decision was made to
rename it Tasmania. It was a tribute to the island's
first visitor, the one who came and left in peace,
and who first put the island on the map, for
better or worse. I'm Gabe Lousier and hopefully you now

(06:25):
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
If you'd like to keep up with the show, you
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day at I heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler

(06:46):
Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening.
I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day
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