The explorer Abel Tasman discovered Australia and New Zealand in what year?
Abel Tasman also worked on ANZAC War Memorial in Hyde Park and the crypt at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney. Abel Tasman Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 1603 – 10 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first known European explorer to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and New Zealand, and to sight the Fiji islands. Tasman originated from Lutjegast, a small village in the province of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. The oldest
Tasman Sea Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea (Māori: "Te Tai-o-Rehua", ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, who was the first recorded European to encounter New Zealand and Tasmania. The British explorer Captain James Cook later extensively navigated the Tasman Sea in the 1770s as part of his first voyage of exploration. The Tasman Sea is informally referred to in both Australian and New Zealand English as The Ditch; for example, "crossing