AD 1513

Vasco de Balboa claims Pacific Ocean, and all islands it touches, for Spain

AD 1520

Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan enters the Pacific

AD 1606

Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon discovers Bay of Carpentier

AD 1606

Dutchman Willem Jansz and his ship Duyfken explore the western coast of Cape York Peninsula

AD 1606

Portuguese explorer Luis Váez de Torres discovers the existence of Australia

AD 1616

Dutch captain, Dirck Hartog is first European to record a landing on west Australian coast; leaves an engraved plate as a monument

AD 1616

Dirk Hartog sails around the coast of Western Australia

AD 1622

English ship Trial wrecked off the coast of Western Australia

AD 1623

Jan Carstenszoon visits northern Australia and names Bay of Carpentie

AD 1627

Nuytsland discovered, Western Australia

AD 1629

Dutch East India Company ship Batavia, with 316 people on board, is wrecked off Western Australia

AD 1642

Dutch explorer Abel Tasman discovers Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania)

AD 1644

Tasman maps the north and west coasts of Australia

AD 1644

Abel Tasman explores the Gulf of Carpentaria

AD 1688

English explorer William Dampier lands on Australia's north-west coast

AD 1696

Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh charts south-western coast Australia

AD 1697

Dutch explorer Willem De Vlamingh, replaced Hartog's plate with one of his own

AD 1699

English adventurer William Dampier names Shark's Bay, Western Australia

AD 1769

Captain James Cook in the Endeavour sails up the east coast of Australia