Jerry Moore, age 12, of Helena, Mont., for his question:
WHEN WAS AUSTRALIA DISCOVERED?
Australia is an island continent located southeast of Asia. Although Chinese and Arab sea captains may have landed in northern Australia before A.D. 1000, Australia in effect remained beyond Asian and European exploratory activities until the 17th century.
If Australia did not exist as known fact, however, it did exist in late medieval European logic and mythology. A great Southland, or Terra Australia, was thought necessary to balance the weight of the northern land masses of Europe and Asia.
Terra Australis often appeared on early European maps as a large, globe shaped mass in about its correct location, although no actual discoveries were recorded by Europeans until much later. Indeed, the European exploration of Australia took more than three centuries to complete.
What is often considered by scientists to be the oldest continent, geologically, turned out to be the last to be discovered and colonized by Europeans.
In the 15th century Portugal's systematic drive southward along the west coast of Africa seeking trade with India rekindled European interest in finding the as yet undiscovered Terra Australis. Portugal, however, gave up exploration to the east and south. And in the 16th and early 17th centuries, Spain also made a few attempts in the area but then lost interest.
The Dutch finally discovered Australia. An expedition led by an explorer named Abel Tasman moved into the waters of southern Australia in 1642. But the Dutch did follow up their oceanic discoveries and thus the way was open for the later arrival of the British.
In the late 17th century a British expedition led by a buccaneer named William Dampier landed in the northeast. A second voyage, in 1699, delivered a dismal assessment of Australia.
In 1768 Captain James Cook left England on a three year expedition to the Pacific that also took him to Australia. It was Cook and his staff, including the botanist Sir James Banks, who later supported settlement of Australia.
Cook's two additional voyages in the 1770s added information on the Australian land mass and cemented Britain's claims to the continent.
French interest was less sustained than that of the British. Marion Dufresne, on his 1772 voyage, concentrated upon charting the less hospitable western coast and Tasmania, and later French explorers investigated Australia's southern coast. By then, however, the British had planted their first settlement and: had claimed the eastern half of the continent.
Even with Britain's sustained efforts, Australia's coasts were not fully explored until well into the 19th century, and it was mid century before the continent's major interior features were known.
Britain moved quickly after the conclusion of the American Revolution in 1783 to establish its first Australian settlement. Because Americans would no longer accept British convicts, the British government announced its intention to establish a penal settlement in Australia.