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Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer and explorer born in 1603 in the village of Lutjegast, Netherlands.

Some time after Tasman joined the Dutch East India Company in 1634, he was ordered to explore the south-east waters in order to find a new sea trade route to Chile in South America. During this voyage, in 1642, he discovered a previously unknown island on his voyage past the "Great South Land", or "New Holland", as the Dutch called Australia. He named it "Antony Van Diemen's Land" in honour of the High Magistrate, or Governor-General of Batavia. He also became the first known European to discover the islands of New Zealand but, following an altercation with the local Maori people, chose not to land there, believing it to be part of the same continent as Van Diemen's Land.

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Q: Who was Abel Tasman?
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