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James Cook (not yet a Captain but still a Lieutenant at the time he sailed to Australia) is sometimes wrongly credited with being the one who discovered Australia, but this is not the case as the continent was discovered over 150 years before Cook arrived.

Cook sailed up the eastern coast in 1770, and claimed the eastern half of Australia as New South Wales. He had a very favourable response to Australia, unlike his predecessor William Dampier, in 1688. Cook believed that the east coast of Australia would be suitable for colonisation, and he and Sir Joseph Banks recommended the region of botany Bay as suitable for a convict settlement.

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13y ago

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