Captain James Cook

Though Captain James Cook is often credited as being the man who discovered Australia, it is not necessarily accurate. There is evidence that the Chinese, Portuguese and English navigators sailed along various parts of the coastline of the Great Southland in earlier times but Cook was the first European to sail from south to north along the east coast and to chart it. He also claimed the continent for the British crown at Possession Island in 1770. There are a number of theories about the real reason that the British Admiralty may have chosen to send an expedition of discovery to the southern hemisphere but the orders given to Cook were that he was to witness and record the Transit of (the planet) Venus from Tahiti during June of 1769. Cook was a man ahead of his time. Not only was he a great navigator but also his humane methods of commanding his crew were unusual for the time and he received great loyalty and devotion to duty from his men as a result.