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No, James Cook did not discover Australia. Australian Aborigines made it to Australia between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago. Various Dutch and Portuguese explorers found Western Australia in the late 1500s and early 1600s, but the Asian people visited the northern coast regularly before that, to collect sea-slugs, a valued delicacy in Asia. The first Englishman to visit Australia was William Dampier, in 1688. Captain Cook charted the eastern coast and claimed it in the name of Britain in 1770.

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12y ago

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