Captain+Cook

=Captain James Cook (1728-1779)=

Captain Cook was born in 1728 in England (Great Britain, also called the United Kingdom). He grew up there learning how to be a sailor. When he was old enough he joined the navy and set off to discover new land.

He made three voyages across the Pacific Ocean.
 * [[image:Endeavour replice.jpg width="274" height="204" align="left" caption="The Endeavour (replica). Source: Wikipedia Commons)"]]First voyage (1768-1771)**
 * Captain Cook sailed on the //Endeavour// from England in 1768, rounded Cape Horn at the tip of South America and sailed west across the Pacific Ocean. The ship landed in Tahiti in 1769, where they watched the Transit of the planet Venus. After that they went to New Zealand and made maps. Then Cook opened the secret orders that told him to search the South Pacific for Australia. (They did not call it Australia then. People called it Terra Australis, New Holland, or The Great South Land).
 * __In 1770 Cook was the first European to land on the eastern coast of Australia__ AND he claimed it for Great Britain by raising the flag __at Botany Bay__ (Sydney). He also made first contact with the Gweagal Aboriginal People.
 * After they left Botany Bay, Cook crashed his ship on the Great Barrier Reef and had to land at Cooktown in Queensland to repair it. He then went back to England via Batavia (now called Jakarta in Indonesia); then to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, and got home in 1771.


 * Second voyage (1772-1775)**


 * Cook was promoted to Commander and the Royal Society sent him to find Australia again, because they did not believe that Cook had already found it. They sent two ships, the //Resolution// and the //Adventure.// The ships got separated in a fog and so Cook circumnavigated the globe near Antarctica alone. He went to New Zealand after that and then he went home to England. He did not visit Australia on this second voyage.


 * Third voyage (1776-1779)**
 * On his last voyage Cook commanded the //Resolution// again. He became the first European to land at Hawaii, and then he went searching for a way around the north of America. He didn't find it, so he went back to Hawaii and was killed by the natives in 1779.

Captain Cook was the first person to claim Australia for the British and raise the British flag at Botany Bay in 1770. But he was not the first person to discover Australia. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have been in Australia for more than 40,000 years (maybe 60,000). They walked across the land bridge from New Guinea when it was still joined to Australia. There were also other explorers in the 16th and 17th century who mapped the Northern and Western Australian coast long before Captain Cook. See the Explorers page.
 * Remember!**



James Cook, portrait by [|Nathaniel Dance], c. 1775, [|National Maritime Museum], [|Greenwich] []

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