Erratum…

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In my quest to be correct, I wasn’t. Willem Janszoon made the first European contact with Australia in 1606 and not Dirk Hartog in 1616.

At the end of 1605, Willem sailed from Java in the Duyfken to the coast of western New Guinea, then headed south crossing the Arafura Sea. He entered the Gulf of Carpentaria and, most historians believe that he made a landfall at the Pennefather River on the western shore of Cape York in Queensland during the early part of 1606. The route Janszoon took lead him to believe that this land was a southerly extension of New Guinea. He and his crew landed there, but found the land swampy and the people inhospitable. Willem Janszoon returned to Java in June 1606 after naming his discovery "Nieu Zelandt". The name was not adopted for that area, but it was used later by Abel Tasman to name New Zealand.

Those Dutch were all over the place, too.

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