Key points
- When European sailors began entering ‘Australian' waters in the early 1600s, they called it Terra Australis Incognita (unknown land of the South).
- Between 1606 and 1770 more than 50 European ships madelandfall on Australian soil, which was then inhabited solely by Indigenous people.
- Navigator and astronomer Captain James Cook claimed the whole of the east coast of Australia for Great Britain on 22 August 1770, naming eastern Australia 'New South Wales'.