How Australia was discovered

This is one of the articles reused from the Lyra's Letters newsletter:
  
How was Australia discovered? There are four concepts to cover:

European explorers

Willem Janszoon – a Dutch explorer – was the first European who saw mainland Australia in 1606 from his ship, the Duyfken. However, Janszoon thought that the unfamiliar land was part of New Guinea. The first European who saw Australia and knew it was Dirk Hartog. Hartog even returned with an artefact. He originally wanted to sail to Batavia, but somehow ended up at an island off the coast we now call Dirk Hartog Island.

Other explorers include Fredrick de Houtman, who was the first European to find Australia on purpose. Abel Tasman, who found and named Tasmania, also circumnavigated it and proved it was not part of what people called “Terra Australis”, the great southern land, which later proved to be Antarctica. Abel Tasman thought Tasmania as worthless to the Dutch company he was working for, but discovered New Zealand, and named it after a province in his home country.

James Cook is still credited for finding Australia, but in reality he was 114 years late, and sailed in 1770. Not to mention that Cook was only a lieutenant when he “discovered” Australia. Cook did, however, chart the relatively fertile east coast of Australia. His deeds are taught to every Australian schoolchild, despite him doing some things that would have been unpopular with Australians, such as finishing his journey without a major disaster.

Cook sailed to Australia knowing Australia was there. But to some, Australia took them completely by surprise, and surprises can be deadly...

Early Australian shipwrecks

In July 1629, more than 120 people died off the coast of Western Australia when the Batavia sank after it struck a coral reef. The ship was heading towards Batavia carrying a vast amount of money when officer Jeronimus Cornelez and a couple other officers planned to rob the ship of its wealth. Before their plans could be realised, the ship sunk and the captain of the ship paddled with some followers to Batavia to get help rescuing his comrades. The captain was shocked at what he saw when he came back. Murder had followed murder as the survivors fought amongst each other. When the captain came back, he sentenced six people to hanging. Two men were sentenced to the Australian mainland where they became the first European residents of Australia.

Another ship, the Aagtekerke, left Cape Town bound for Batavia in January 1726 and was never seen again.

There were 5 large ship disasters in Australia before 1800. However, the Europeans were not the only people to shipwreck Australia. There must have been many wrecks in Australia, say, about forty thousand years ago...

The first people in Australia

The artefact Dirk Hartog found was made by the Aboriginal people of Australia. These people were there, unseen, for forty thousand years until 1770 when the First Fleet arrived – by comparison North America was finally disturbed when Florida was founded in the mid – 1500s. There was still water between Southeast Asia and New Guinea 40000 years ago, but most of Indonesia was joined to Asia and New Guinea to Australia. The Aboriginal people took advantage of the shallow waters during the Ice Age and crossed the gap. There, at the far side, they spread across the country with astounding speed, mastering hellish deserts and icy mountains. Not only the Aboriginal people and the Europeans used boats, though...

The Ancient Egyptians

Twins, while playing in a beach in Victoria, found an ancient Egyptian coin encased in sandstone which was later dated to be 4000 years old. How did an Egyptian coin appear in Australia? Later the ruins of a possible Egyptian town was uncovered, complete with pieces of a pyramid. This stirred up more questions. Did Ancient Egyptians really start a settlement in Australia?

Other civilisations may have found Australia too. If you look at a Viking world map, you see Africa, Europe, part of India and...

Is that Australia?