Abel Tasman
1603 – 10 October 1659
Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer and explorer in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). On his 1642-1643 voyage he became the first known European to reach Tasmania and New Zealand and to sight Fiji, and a second voyage in 1644 charted much of Australia's northern coast. The island of Tasmania and the Tasman Sea are named after him.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Abel Tasman.
- Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) Overlapped 56 years →
- Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) Overlapped 56 years →
- Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) Overlapped 56 years →
- Otto von Guericke (1602–1686) Overlapped 56 years →
- Shah Jahan (1592–1666) Overlapped 56 years →
- Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) Overlapped 56 years →
Life events
Abel Tasman was born in 1603 in the village of Lutjegast in the province of Groningen.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe widowed Tasman married his second wife, Jannetje Tjaers, in Amsterdam in January 1632.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgTasman sailed to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies as a VOC skipper, beginning his career in Asian waters.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgCommissioned by Governor-General Anthony van Diemen, Tasman sailed with the ships Heemskerck and Zeehaen to explore the southern seas.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgTasman became the first known European to reach the island later named Tasmania, claiming it for the Netherlands.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgTasman sighted the South Island of New Zealand; days later four of his crew were killed in a clash with Māori at Golden Bay.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgContinuing his voyage, Tasman visited the Tongan archipelago and became the first European to sight the Fiji islands.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgTasman's 1644 expedition mapped large sections of Australia's north coast, which the Dutch called New Holland.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgTasman died a wealthy man in Batavia (modern Jakarta), where he had settled after retiring from active exploration.
Source: en.wikipedia.org