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Abel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 160310 October 1659) was a Dutch sea explorer, seafarer and exploration, explorer, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first European to reach New Zealand, which he named ''Staten Landt''. He was also the eponym of Tasmania. Likely born in 1602 or 1603 in Lutjegast, Netherlands, Tasman started his career as a merchant seaman and became a skilled navigator. In 1633, he joined the VOC and sailed to Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia, now Jakarta, Indonesia. He participated in several voyages, including one to Japan. In 1642, Tasman was appointed by the VOC to lead an expedition to explore the uncharted regions of the Southern Pacific Ocean. His mission was to discover new trade routes and to establish trade relations with the native inhabitants. After leaving Batavia, Tasman sailed westward to Mauritius, then south to the Roaring Forties, then eastward, and reached the coast of Tasma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Lutjegast
Lutjegast () is a village in the municipality of Westerkwartier (municipality), Westerkwartier in Groningen (province), Groningen, Netherlands. It had a population of around 1,125 in January 2017. History The name ''Lutjegast'' originates from Gronings in which ''lutje'' means small or little and a ''ga(a)st'' is a higher, sandy ridge in an otherwise swampy area. The village was first mentioned in 1459 as "op de Lutkegast". Lutjegast is a road village which developed on a sandy ridge. The Dutch Reformed church was built in 1877 and was restored in 1922. The Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, Reformed Church is a cruciform church built in 1922 without a tower in Expressionist architecture, expressionist style. Lutjegast was the birthplace of the explorer Abel Tasman. He is memorialised in town by a monument, plaque and street name. In 2014, a museum dedicated to Abel Tasman opened in the village house. Until 1828, a manor house named "Rikkerdaborg" stood in Lutjegast. Its most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Anthony Van Diemen
Anthony van Diemen (also ''Antonie'', ''Antonio'', ''Anton'', ''Antonius''; 1593 – 19 April 1645) was a Dutch colonial governor. Early life Van Diemen was born in Culemborg (now in the Netherlands, then in a county in the Holy Roman Empire), the son of Meeus Anthonisz van Diemen and Christina Hoevenaar. In 1616, he moved to Amsterdam, in hope of improving his fortune as a merchant; in this he failed and was declared bankrupt. After a year he became a servant of the Dutch East India Company and sailed to Batavia, Dutch East Indies (Jakarta), capital of the Dutch East Indies. On the voyage out, the East Indiaman ''Mauritius'' inadvertently put in on unknown coast of Australia. Career Governor Jan Pieterszoon Coen found van Diemen to be a talented official and by 1626 he was Director-General of Commerce and member of the Council for the Indies. In 1630, he married Maria van Aelst. A year later he returned to the Netherlands as Admiral on the ship ''Deventer''. While on rout ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Fort Zeelandia (Taiwan)
Fort Zeelandia () was a fortress built over ten years from 1624 to 1634 by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in the town of Anping (now Anping District of Tainan) on Formosa, the former name of central island of Taiwan, during their Taiwan under Dutch rule, 38-year rule over the western part of the island. The site had been renamed several times as Fort Orange (奧倫治城; ), Fort Anping (安平城; ), and Taiwan City (臺灣城; ); the current name of the site in Chinese is . During the seventeenth century, when Europeans from many countries sailed to Asia to develop trade, Formosa became one of East Asia's most important transit sites, and Fort Zeelandia an international business center. As trade at the time depended on "military force to control the markets", the value of Formosa to the Dutch was mainly in its strategic position. "From Formosa the Spanish commerce between Manila and China, and the Portuguese commerce between Macau and Japan could by constant attacks be mad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Matthijs Quast
Matthijs Hendrikszoon Quast (died 6 October 1641), anglicized as Matthys and Matthew Quast, was a Dutch merchant and explorer in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Quast made several voyages on the VOC's behalf to Tokugawa Japan, the Qing Empire (China), and Ayutthaya Kingdom ("Siam") but is primarily remembered for his failed 1639 expedition in search of the phantom islands of Rica de Oro and Rica de Plata previously reported by Spanish mariners. He is sometimes credited with the first recorded discovery of the Bonin Islands during the voyage, although the VOC did nothing with the information and they remained unimportant and sparsely settled until the 19th century. 1639 Expedition Claims that southern or eastern seas held islands rich with gold and silver are at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who called them Chryse and Argyre. Spanish mariners had placed their and ("Island Rich with Gold" and "with Silver") at various locations around the North Pacifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Seram Island
Seram (formerly spelled Ceram; also Seran or Serang) is the largest and main island of Maluku province of Indonesia, despite Ambon Island's historical importance. It is located just north of the smaller Ambon Island and a few other adjacent islands, such as Saparua, Haruku, Nusa Laut and the Banda Islands. Geography and geology Seram is traversed by a central mountain range, the highest point of which, Mount Binaiya, is covered with dense rain forests. Its remarkably complex geology is because of its location at the meeting of several tectonic microplates, which have been described as "one of the most tectonically complex areas on Earth". Seram falls on its microplate, which has been twisted around by 80° in the last 8 million years by the relatively faster movement of the Papua microplate. Meanwhile, along with the northward push of the Australian Plate, this has resulted in the uplift that gives north-central Seram peaks of over 3000 m. On the island, there are import ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Brouwer Route
The Brouwer Route was a 17th-century route used by ships sailing from the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch East Indies, as the eastern leg of the Cape Route. The route took ships south from the Cape (which is at 34° latitude south) into the Roaring Forties, then east across the Indian Ocean, before turning northeast for Java. Thus it took advantage of the strong westerly winds for which the Roaring Forties are named, greatly increasing travel speed. The problem with the route was lack of an accurate way, at the time, to determine longitude, and thereby to know how far east a vessel had travelled. A sighting of either Amsterdam Island or Saint Paul Island was the only cue for ships to change direction and head north. However, this was reliant on the captain's expertise. Consequently, many ships were damaged by or wrecked on rocks, reefs, or islands on the western continental shelf of Australia, which was virtually unknown to Europeans at the time. The route was devised by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Texel
Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of Den Helder, northeast of Noorderhaaks, and southwest of Vlieland. Name The name ''Texel'' is Frisian, but because of historical sound-changes in Dutch, where all -x- sounds have been replaced with -s- sounds (compare for instance English ''fox'', Frisian ''fokse'', German ''Fuchs'' with Dutch ''vos''), the name is typically pronounced ''Tessel'' in Dutch. History The All Saints' Flood of 1170 created the islands of Texel and Wieringen from North Holland. In the 13th century Ada, Countess of Holland was held prisoner on Texel by her uncle, William I, Count of Holland. Texel received city rights in 1415. The first Dutch expedition to the Northwest Passage departed from the island on 5 June 1594. Texel was involved in the Battle o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
New Zealand Geographic
''New Zealand Geographic'' is a bi-monthly magazine founded in 1989 and published by Kōwhai Media of Auckland, New Zealand. In the format popularised by ''National Geographic,'' it focuses on the biodiversity, geography, and culture of New Zealand, Antarctica, and nearby Pacific Islands. The magazine showcases documentary and editorial photography, and each year runs a national Photographer of the Year competition. History ''New Zealand Geographic'' was founded in 1988 by Kennedy Warne and John Woods, and the first issue was Jan-Feb 1989. Warne, who served as editor for 15 years, had a Master's degree in marine biology, which informed the magazine's early focus on conservation and natural history. He was followed in 2004 by Warren Judd as editor. In the July–August 2008 issue, the editor announced the formation of a New Zealand Geographic Society, renamed in the next issue to the New Zealand Geographic Trust, with all subscribers counted as members. It announced its first re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Maluku Islands
The Maluku Islands ( ; , ) or the Moluccas ( ; ) are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonics, Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located in West Melanesia. Lying within Wallacea (mostly east of the biogeography, biogeographical Max Carl Wilhelm Weber, Weber Line), the Moluccas have been considered a geographical and cultural intersection of Asia and Oceania. The islands were known as the Spice Islands because of the nutmeg, Nutmeg#Mace, mace, and cloves that were exclusively found there, the presence of which sparked European colonial interests in the 16th century. The Maluku Islands formed a single Provinces of Indonesia, province from Indonesian independence until 1999, when they were split into two provinces. A new province, North Maluku, incorporates the area between Morotai and Sula Islands Regency, Sula, with the arc of islands from Buru and Seram Island, Seram to Wetar rem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
The Encyclopedia Of New Zealand
''Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand'' is an online encyclopedia established in 2001 by the New Zealand Government's Ministry for Culture and Heritage. The web-based content was developed in stages over the next several years; the first sections were published in 2005, and the last in 2014 marking its completion. ''Te Ara'' means "the pathway" in the Māori language, and contains over three million words in articles from over 450 authors. Over 30,000 images and video clips are included from thousands of contributors. History New Zealand's first recognisable encyclopedia was ''The Cyclopedia of New Zealand'', a commercial venture compiled and published between 1897 and 1908 in which businesses or people usually paid to be covered. In 1966 the New Zealand Government published ''An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand'', its first official encyclopedia, in three volumes. Although now superseded by ''Te Ara'', its historical importance led to its inclusion as a separate digital reso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Groningen (province)
Groningen ( , ; ; ; ) is the northeasternmost provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands. It borders on Friesland to the west, Drenthe to the south, the Germany, German state of Lower Saxony to the east, and the Wadden Sea to the north. As of January 2023, Groningen had a population of about 596,000, and a total area of . Historically the area was at different times part of Frisia, the Francia, Frankish Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Dutch Republic, the precursor state of the modern Netherlands. In the 14th century, the city of Groningen became a member of the Hanseatic League. The provincial capital and the largest city in the province is the Groningen, city of Groningen (231,299 inhabitants). Since 2016, René Paas has been the King's Commissioner in the province. A coalition of GroenLinks, the Labour Party (Netherlands), Labour Party, ChristianUnion, People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Democrats 66, and Christian Democratic Appeal forms the exec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
South Island
The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south by the Foveaux Strait and Southern Ocean, and to the east by the Pacific Ocean. The South Island covers , making it the List of islands by area, world's 12th-largest island, constituting 56% of New Zealand's land area. At low altitudes, it has an oceanic climate. The most populous cities are Christchurch, Dunedin, Nelson, New Zealand, Nelson and Invercargill. Prior to European settlement, Te Waipounamu was sparsely populated by three major iwi – Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, and the historical Waitaha (South Island iwi), Waitaha – with major settlements including in Kaiapoi Pā near modern-day Christchurch. During the Musket Wars expanding iwi colonised Te Tau Ihu Māori, Te Tau Ihu, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
