Australia

First Europeans in Australia

Who discovered Australia? Most people think of the First Fleet that went to Botany Bay 1788, but our ideas may require rethinking, following recent research on DNA analysis, and epidemiological studies of a rare disease. 

Did the Portuguese Discover Australia?

Two hundred years before Captain Cook, Dieppe map makers placed the Portuguese flag on a large land-mass called Java-la-Grande approximately where Australia appears on today's atlas. Helen Wallis sifts through the cartographic evidence to examine the intriguing question.