The Pacific was settled by the most ambitious voyaging in human history, and Australia holds the longest continuous cultures on Earth. These articles follow navigators, islands and the societies that grew between them.
Quiros's fleet entered a bay in Vanuatu on May 1, 1606, named the land Australia del Espiritu Santo; a storm later parted his ship from Torres's.
· 1606Pelsaert's journal records the Batavia's grounding on Morning Reef in 1629, the mutiny that followed, its trial, and the wreck's 1963 rediscovery.
· 1629Tasman's ships anchored in Golden Bay on December 18, 1642. A canoe rammed the Zeehaen's boat next morning; four men died and Tasman left without landing.
· 1642He came aboard Endeavour on July 13, 1769, at Banks's request, spoke to Māori for Cook in New Zealand, drew a chart of islands and died at Batavia in 1770.
· 1769Cook's journal records a musket fired between two Gweagal men at Botany Bay; Banks put the number of spears taken afterward at forty or fifty.
· 1770Bligh's own account of the dawn of April 28, 1789, the 3618-mile boat voyage to Timor, and the Portsmouth court-martial of 1792 that hanged three men.
· 1789In English the chiefs ceded sovereignty; in Māori they gave kāwanatanga and kept tino rangatiratanga. The Waitangi Tribunal has judged the gap since 1975.
· 1840A 30-shilling license, a charter adopted on Bakery Hill on November 11, 1854, a stockade stormed on December 3 and 13 treason trials that convicted no one.
· 1854William Brahe left the Cooper Creek depot nine hours before Burke, Wills and King returned on April 21, 1861; a royal commission later divided the blame.
· 1861Three police shot at Stringybark Creek on October 26, 1878; a 56-page letter left at Jerilderie in 1879; Glenrowan in June 1880; the gallows, November 11.
· 1880Mount Tarawera erupted for about five hours on June 10, 1886 and buried Te Wairoa. A lake survey and a land survey disagree on where the terraces lie.
· 1886On January 17, 1893, Queen Liliʻuokalani yielded Hawaiʻi under protest to US troops. Cleveland called it an act of war; Congress apologized in 1993.
· 1893The April 25, 1915 landing was the first major action of Australia's and New Zealand's own forces; 8,709 Australians and 2,779 New Zealanders died there.
· 1915The New Zealand steamer Talune carried influenza to Western Samoa in November 1918. American Samoa's quarantine held, and Western Samoa lost a fifth of its people.
· 1918On May 27, 1967, 90.77% of Australian voters struck eight words from section 51 and all of section 127 of the Constitution; a second question failed.
· 1967José Garanger dug 118 square meters at Mangaasi on Efate in 1966–67 and named a pottery style. Re-excavation from 1996 put Erueti ware before it.
· 1967On July 6, 1986 the UN Secretary-General ruled France owed New Zealand an apology, US$7 million and three years on Hao for two agents. Both left early.
· 1985On June 3, 1992 the High Court of Australia held six to one that Meriam native title to Mer survived annexation; terra nullius had no place in its law.
· 1992On December 11, 2019, Bougainville counted 176,928 votes for independence against 3,043 for autonomy, pending ratification by Papua New Guinea.
· 2019
