Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer and explorer born in 1603 in the village of Lutjegast, Netherlands. Tasman was employed by the Dutch East India Company and, ordered to try to find a new sea trade route to Chile in South America. On 24 November 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. The island was renamed Tasmania in 1855.
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