October 7

On the 7th in 1769, English explorer Captain Cook stumbled upon New Zealand. Cook was the first European to set foot on New Zealand since Abel Janszoon Tasman had attempted, but failed, to establish a colony in New Zealand in 1642. William Bligh, of Mutiny on the Bounty fame, was Cook’s sailing master. George Vancouver, who would be among the first to explore the coasts of Washington and Oregon in America’s Pacific Northwest, was one of the midshipmen on Cook’s second voyage of discovery. Tasman is generally given credit for having discovered New Zealand; despite the fact that people known as the Maori since at least the ninth century had continuously inhabited this island.