0::32 thank you for that assessment of us Dutchies Stephen.😂😂 It's nice to learn things about ourselves that I've never known before. I do happen to be a joint-smoking homosexual, however I had no idea that the rest of the world knew it as well😂
I'm afraid you are wrong Stephen, it was the Vikings that did it of course, just like they got there first everywhere else. It's been kept quiet by NASA but when they landed on the moon they were surprised to find a Viking ship up there
That book is indeed a fabrication - but 18th century Qing artefacts have been found in northern Australia. And coins from East Africa about 1000 years ago have also been found in northern Australia. Probably Indonesians were going back and forth way before any European set foot here. Plus, China's a lot closer to Australia than Europe, and it was for ages a leader in technology and exploration, so it's not hard to imagine they did get here at some point.
Unlike the Americas where there where either large oceans or extremely cold, desolate stretches separating them from the Old World, Australia is fairly easy to get to maritime wise and almost certainly had maritime contact with the outside world. Whether a major Empire encountered them is another story as I don't think any ever conquered the Indonesian island chains pre-colonial era. (Though there is strong evidence that Polynesians also reached South America so there is that...)
Australia was attached to Indonesia by a land bridge to the North. It's what palaeontologists called Gondwanaland. But many of the people who first populated here came by canoe from Polynesia and Melanesia. These are the people whose tribal lands stretch from the Torres Strait Islands to Cape York and on down to South Eastern Queensland.
i remember impressing my history teacher in year 7 or 8 because i pointed out that the word aboriginal literally contained the word original, and she researched it and discovered that it actually just meant original people and really wasn't specific to australia; needless to say i had very little faith in my education
You had a teacher who didn't know something and their response was to do research and learn more about the topic, and that was bad teacher in your mind?
The people of Australia and New Zealand are well aware of Abel Tasman's role in "discovering" the antipodean lands, New Holland and New Zealand, and probably the Dutch do too, but the Brits apparently have no clue.
Excluding the Aboriginal tribes, who by definition discovered Australia first, I'd imagine the nearby Indonesian/Papuan polities/tribes would have had the silver medal. The Moluccan peoples had been trading and fishing with the northern Aboriginals for centuries before Europeans came. And the Papuans? Have you *seen* the Torres Strait? There are a chain of islands that are easily accessible and provide a clear path to and from the two landmasses. There is no way that there was not some form of interaction going on there.
The first non-Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders to find Australia were Indonesians. People from Sulawesi used to frequently visit the coast of what is now the Northern Territory and interact with the locals.
The fishermen of Makassar visited the coast of northern Australia and traded with the natives for years, well before European arrival. These were the first confirmed external encounters with Australia, but it's likely that others from the Malay Archipelago and as far as China had visited Australia as well, given the continent's close proximity to Asia (it's hard to miss a continent). The Dutch were the first Europeans to discover Australia when Willem Janszoon landed there in 1606 and mapped the west side of Cape York Peninsula. The same year, the Spanish explorer Luís Vaz de Torres navigated the strait between New Guinea and Australia which now bears his name, but he probably thought Cape York Peninsula was a large island. Next came Dirk Hartog, another Dutchman, who was blown off course in 1616 and landed on an island at Shark Bay in Western Australia. There were two Dutch sightings of Western Australia in 1618, and in 1619, Frederick de Houtman sighted land near present-day Perth and sailed by the area Dirk Hartog had encountered earlier. In 1622, the crew of the _Leeuwin_ mapped the coast of present-day Cape Leeuwin, while the _Wapen van Hoorn_ ran aground in Shark Bay. There were numerous other discoveries, mainly Dutch, in the following years. Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania in 1642 and mapped more of the northern coast in 1644. By this time, Dutch maps were quite accurate in portraying the north, west, and south coast of Australia as well as Tasmania, as evidenced by this map from 1644: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Thevenot_-_Hollandia_Nova_detecta_1644.png/1280px-Thevenot_-_Hollandia_Nova_detecta_1644.png It wasn't until James Cook landed in Botany Bay in 1770 that the east coast was first discovered, and despite ambitions by the Dutch, French, and Swedish, the British were the first to establish a colony in Australia.
Thanks for the detailed background. Are there any archeological findings from the trade between the Makassar fishermen and the natives found in Australia? If so, have these been dated?
The Chinese hypothesis has never been proven. It was written by a person with no evidence that it actually occurred just to sell a book or two. I'm quite surprised that this show took it as absolute "truth".
He did make the argument reasonably compelling at the time, and a lot of people believed it. I bought the book myself and, to be fair, if you didn't have an intimate knowledge about specific artifacts (particular maps, shipwrecks, coins etc) and maritime trade, a lot of what he said would seem plausible. It took a while for actual experts to pick apart his "evidence" to show he either made it up or was extrapolating wildly. Not surprised that QI was taken in like a lot of others.
All they did was build new forms of ships to piss off from Portugal quicker And they invented marmalade, I don’t like the Portuguese they are rude racist and selfish!
Actually Portuguese explorers got to Timor in 1512 (more or less)... do you think they would not get to Australia? It was the Portuguese who mapped Asia before the other European powers were aware of the sea route to get there. The Dutch got there and conquered the Portuguese outposts (good for them). Portuguese ships arrived in Japan around 1543.
The portuguese were indeed the first in india and the rest of south-east asia, but not australia, new zealand and tasmania. The dutch got there before them.
I'm not 100% sure but what looks close to each other on the map, may be more difficult to reach because of currents, weather, etc. And of course, back in the day, everything before the invention of the steam engine, was powered by sails or oars. The Polynesians probably visited every place in the Pacific because they were always on the move. The Dutch only chanced upon Australia because they forgot to make a 'left turn' towards their intended goal, the Indonesian Archipelago. Because, seriously, *whoever* wanted to go to *nowhere?* I suspect that's how most people viewed the possibility of finding land there. Why do you think the British first saw it as a way to get rid of their Irish? I mean, convicts. The only thing the Portugese are remembered for (other than founding the trading posts the Dutch later took) was that we kicked them out of most.
@@AudieHolland Erm the Portuguese were pioneers of navigation technology, cartography, they discovered the sea trade route to India, were the first Europeans in Japan, discovered Brazil among many other feats. They basically did it first.
For so thing that is claimed not to exist, there's a hell of a lot of it as I found out when I flew over it some years ago. Good view of Uluru as well.
@Friendly Stranger The Maoris didn't come from Indonesia, because they were Polynesians from a long established Polynesia, possibly the Cook Islands or even Hawaii.
Cook was the first navigator to map the East coast of Australia, which he claimed for the Crown. This was based on the 1495 Treaty of Tordesillas where the pope effectively gave the East of Australia to the Spanish and the west to the Portugal, a long time ally of England. Spain a traditional enemy was ignored. It was expected other European countries would eventually land and claim other areas as had happened in the Americas. A Swedish King even considered a colony in Western Australia. A few days after the first fleet landed to start the colony of New South Wales the French explorer La Perouse arrived expecting to find an already functioning village and was surprised to discovered the British had themselves only just arrived. The Napoleonic wars then prevented other potential European colonial expeditions to Australia.
I'm not sure if anything you've said is accurate , but seeing your comment was posted 4 years ago and you didn't get 1 like, considering this is YT after all, I'm gonna go ahead and give you one. Just because of the wall of text you typed.
James Cook was captain of a vessel, but did not have the rank of captain. His position and rank were two different things, but the same word got used for the two.
Australia was even first called New Holland and Tasmania called Van Diemen’s Lans by the Dutch before later being renamed Australia from the Latin terra australis meaning South Land
In my town we ride bicycles. Well not me, I walk everywhere but cycling is very popular. I wish it was more so. You don't need a car in my neighborhood
Anthony van Diemen was actually Abel Tasman's boss. So in the end nothing more than a bit of pleasing your superior by naming a new land after him. Van Diemen's Land was Tasmania btw.
Fun fact, Australia was first named as New Holland by the Dutch who discovered it. And New Zealand was named after the province of Zeeland, which is why it's 'New' Zealand
Stephen never answered the aboriginal question. But my first thought was India as well. I'm not sure about the timing of when Australia separated from SE Asia and when the Indian subcontinent slammed into MidSouth Asia.
Another important fact was that Cook's ship was actually a barque. So instead of being HMS Endeavour it was HMB Endeavour. What I always thought odd about Cook is that he first makes sighting of land at Point Hicks - which is way down near the NSW-Vicorian border but he doesn't try to land till he sails all the way up into what is now Botany Bay. Was the guy not curious?
He probably was, but he had a crew and passengers to consider also. He decided on Botany Bay because it was the first adequate sheltered harbour he found with what looked like it had sufficient resources to go ashore and see what it was like. Wouldn't be too good being ashore without decent shelter for the ship (which was anchored offshore) in case there was a rapid change in weather and the ship gets wrecked before you can get back to it.
@@xen0g3n And if a ship got wrecked in Australia in 1770s that's a life sentence, effectively. You're trapped in remotest corner of the world either building civilization from scratch or joining one of the Aboriginal tribes living in hope that Britain or some other European power will send another ship and that they will pass by where you are and that you will see them and that they will see you and pick you up. It was incredibly dangerous.
The correct answer is , the ancestors of the Aboriginal people when they migrated across the land bridge from Asia during the last ice age. Currently thought to have occurred about 30-40 thousand years ago.
Evidence has been found over 5 years ago that there were first people tribes trading with Spanish and South American travelers many years before the Chinese ever traveled near Australia. Rock carvings have shown ships that were considered lost by their home nations trading goods with some of the island tribes.
The first concrete application of the name Australia corresponds to the Spanish expedition of the Portuguese Pedro Fernández de Quirós, who discovered the archipelago of the New Hebrides (present-day Vanuatu) in 1606, whose largest island was called "Australia (sic) del Espíritu Santo",[22][23] a name that Quirós himself chose in reference to the feast of the Holy Spirit and, to a lesser extent, to the House of Austria (Austria with the suffix "-lia"), to which the Spanish monarch belonged.[23
Whats interesting is the aboriginal dreamtime story of the boab tree. Then have a look at the boab tree. Once you've done that look up the african boabab tree and look up their story about how that tree came about. Two trees that look exactly the same, just happen to have a very similar name. And the stories from both indiginous groups goes something along the lines of a spirit/diety being so jealous of the tree being beautiful that they pulled it out of the ground and jammed it back in upside down. That's a hell of a coincidence to share so many commonalities, as much as science may favour the idea of aboriginals being from elsewhere their dreamtime stories suggest otherwise.
Well yeah obviously the Aboriginal Australians were there before anybody, but they are talking about the first people to get there who weren't natives, in relatively modern times. Kinda like the debate on who first came to America and interacted with the Native Americans, whether it be the Spanish, the Dutch, or even the Vikings.
He did properly cover that, but perhaps he could have better formulated the initial question as who were the first non aboriginals to discover Australia.
@Trent Michael Yes, thank you smartie, but we already know that, and the video also fully covered it as well. And since we already know that the word has another more specific meaning, you simply deciding to deliberately ignore the clear context of this thread which already determined the meaning does nothing to affect the intrinsic sense of my comment at all. In fact, 'technically speaking', because you have used a capital 'A' for the word which the general meaning doesn't require, it is you who has inadvertantly deployed the narrower definition of 'indigenous Australian', which means that your comment is simply untrue, because everyone is NOT an indigenous Australian Aborigine. When jumping down semantic rabbit holes, make sure that you don't end trapping yourself in them. Now, is there anything actually relevant that you would like to say?
@Greg Moonen Literally the first thing Stephen Fry said was that the Chinese were the first people to get there, so I'm not sure what you mean by that statement.
@Greg Moonen Did...did you even watch the video? Maybe you just need to do a better job of using your ears. Because he clearly said that _other than the Aborigines,_ the Chinese were the first to get there. Meaning that the Chinese were the first people to interact with Native Australians, who had been cut off from the rest of the world for potentially tens of thousands of years. That was literally the point of this question in the first place, to show that it WASN'T Europeans who got there first. Lol idk how you interpreted it in such a way but clearly you missed something man.
The Portuguese were trading with Japan 250 years before the dutch and English. You think they just missed Australia? New findings add proof to the Portuguese. Google, Cristovao de Mendonca (1521-1524) The Dutch and English just followed Portugal around and grabbed stuff, by the way add France and Spain.
Stephen was only half right. James Cook was a Captain in regard to being in charge of his ship, which in the Royal Navy could me that a mere Lieutenant cou,d still be a Captain.
It is spelled Lieutenant. The Royal Navy pronounces it as "luhtenant" whilst the Army pronounces it as " leftenant". The only Commonwealth naval force to pronounce the word as "leftenant" is the Canadian one. That is because the land sea and air forces of Canada were combined. The combined defence force uses army rank and pronunciation. They use the old naval salute with the palm facing down.
@@jmsta2011 they migrated there. We are all one race, so there is no such thing as invasion, it's just the reunification of lost cousins. Unfortunately there were far right terrorists among the aboriginals so the poor unfortunates who went there to find a better life had to fight to end the scourge of brown supremacy. Racists classify this as invasion.
Clive Bindley - When you act like a pedantic fucktard, it makes you a douchebag. When you are DEAD FUCKING WRONG it makes you an imbecile. English is obviously not your strong suit.🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕 www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unfound
I've heard this claim of a great Chinese fleet of discovery repeated many times of late, but I have to ask: is this based upon verifiable documentation, or simply the relativist notion that we have to accord someone else's folk tales the same weight as our own (western, that is) historical records?
I don't understand the logic behind this sort of question. Or the denial of any "discovery" based on "when" it was made. Such questions should therefore be more specific, and include e.g. "first", because the word "discover" doesn't necessarily imply "first/second/third", nor does it negate someone having discovered the same thing already. Its simply a word for find/revealing/understanding something that was previously unknown. Ie. "discovery" can happen at any time and in any order. So James Cook therefore _did_ indeed discover Australia, but he wasn't the first. Likewise, Christopher Columbus discovered America, though also wasn't the first (or second, or third, or fourth...). Also, what is often left out is " *who* the discovery was *for* " (ie. who it affected). with James Cook (and European explorers), he discovered Australia for _Europe and the Western World_ . The Chinese for the Chinese, The Aborigines (whose given name/title literally even implies they were the first) for themselves, etc.
QI worked so much better with Stephen because it has such a school classroom vibe. Where the one kid who desperately wants to learn is surrounded by idiots cracking wise constantly!
@@RhodianColossus At least Stephen pretended to be interested in what the panel had to say. Sandi doesn't even wait for an answer to get into her long monologues.
It wasn't the tectonic plates shifting, it was that the crossing was so difficult that it was only made tens of thousands of years ago. The strait is deep enough that it was still there during the ice age when sea levels were lower.
@@KRW1612 That only means they had no colonies there. It doesn't mean they didn't accidentally stumble upon it like the Dutch later did. And then they saw it was all wasteland anyway, as far as the eye can see so they just put a sticky for other Polynesians not to go there. Don't go to that big heap of sand and rocks.
This should be which non indigenous group RE-discovered the land as there were people there since 60,000 years ago. Maybe even earlier. Pretty sure they discovered it first.
0::32 thank you for that assessment of us Dutchies Stephen.😂😂
It's nice to learn things about ourselves that I've never known before.
I do happen to be a joint-smoking homosexual, however I had no idea that the rest of the world knew it as well😂
Alan is like a small child in this clip 😂
Indi Heaton He is really mashing it. Funny bloke.
To be fair, Alan is like a small child in most of the clips.
It's been my impression that he's like a child in every clip.
He's like if you fused Tom Baker, Tommy Wiseau, & a small English child.
@@lawrencecalablaster568 Yeah, he's definitely the comic relief for this show.
I'm afraid you are wrong Stephen, it was the Vikings that did it of course, just like they got there first everywhere else. It's been kept quiet by NASA but when they landed on the moon they were surprised to find a Viking ship up there
Are you bonkers? There were 2. Get your facts straight.
Yes, then they found the hole in Antarctica that leads to Inner Earth....
Travis I think they're joking....
There's always a Travis who doesn't get the joke
I saw you spelt go wrong, somehow. You can't edit my memory.
It's been interesting to see how the half-life of knowledge has taken its toll on QI over the years.
How do you mean?
The amount of time elapsed before half the facts given out in QI are no longer true.
So these old episodes arent so accurate anymore?
Exactly
@@yannatoko9898 would be fascinating, I'm sure, if any of you had deigned to share the innacurcacy with the rest of us
The Chinese did not discover Australia in 1432 - that book has been openly revealed to be false as admitted by its author.
The Chinese even admit there aren't any records that such a thing happened.
Except they had Kangaroos in the Imperial Palace in the 1400s so were did they come from?
That book is indeed a fabrication - but 18th century Qing artefacts have been found in northern Australia. And coins from East Africa about 1000 years ago have also been found in northern Australia. Probably Indonesians were going back and forth way before any European set foot here. Plus, China's a lot closer to Australia than Europe, and it was for ages a leader in technology and exploration, so it's not hard to imagine they did get here at some point.
@@ticklish1991 there are certainly records of muslims (of some description) having traded with aborigines on the northern tip of australia
Unlike the Americas where there where either large oceans or extremely cold, desolate stretches separating them from the Old World, Australia is fairly easy to get to maritime wise and almost certainly had maritime contact with the outside world. Whether a major Empire encountered them is another story as I don't think any ever conquered the Indonesian island chains pre-colonial era.
(Though there is strong evidence that Polynesians also reached South America so there is that...)
"Your balls turned into a small purse."
"A very big purse, I think you will find."
That is magic. This banter is why the show is so special.
The guy with the curly hair is always the funniest. He always looks so mischievous when he cracks a joke.^^
Alan is the only permanent panelist/"guest"
his redskins remark was very casually racist.
@@kurtsudheim825 He's been in every episode except 1. The only panelist/guess to do so. The episode where he wasn't there just wasn't as funny.
As a Dutch person I will neither deny nor confirm Stephen's statements 😅
Australia was attached to Indonesia by a land bridge to the North. It's what palaeontologists called Gondwanaland. But many of the people who first populated here came by canoe from Polynesia and Melanesia. These are the people whose tribal lands stretch from the Torres Strait Islands to Cape York and on down to South Eastern Queensland.
and Gondwanaland was also part of the East coast of Africa before the big Continental drifts.
i remember impressing my history teacher in year 7 or 8 because i pointed out that the word aboriginal literally contained the word original, and she researched it and discovered that it actually just meant original people and really wasn't specific to australia; needless to say i had very little faith in my education
Neddie nice one!
Yes, but which ones? 😆
You had a teacher who didn't know something and their response was to do research and learn more about the topic, and that was bad teacher in your mind?
kraiZor yep good point. Not many people would know that, let alone a teacher. And of course, a great response from that teacher!
Its a sign of a good teacher however if you have a Grade 9 English teacher who cant spell you may have problems.
Fry always finds the good and proper way to joke about something 😂
Alan sounds just like Ben from Outnumbered
0:07 which was a relief for the people living there because they were lost
The people of Australia and New Zealand are well aware of Abel Tasman's role in "discovering" the antipodean lands, New Holland and New Zealand, and probably the Dutch do too, but the Brits apparently have no clue.
Where i live in the netherlands, abel tasman is a very popular historical figure. Buildings and streets are named after him alot.
Excluding the Aboriginal tribes, who by definition discovered Australia first, I'd imagine the nearby Indonesian/Papuan polities/tribes would have had the silver medal. The Moluccan peoples had been trading and fishing with the northern Aboriginals for centuries before Europeans came. And the Papuans? Have you *seen* the Torres Strait? There are a chain of islands that are easily accessible and provide a clear path to and from the two landmasses. There is no way that there was not some form of interaction going on there.
The first non-Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders to find Australia were Indonesians. People from Sulawesi used to frequently visit the coast of what is now the Northern Territory and interact with the locals.
The fishermen of Makassar visited the coast of northern Australia and traded with the natives for years, well before European arrival. These were the first confirmed external encounters with Australia, but it's likely that others from the Malay Archipelago and as far as China had visited Australia as well, given the continent's close proximity to Asia (it's hard to miss a continent).
The Dutch were the first Europeans to discover Australia when Willem Janszoon landed there in 1606 and mapped the west side of Cape York Peninsula. The same year, the Spanish explorer Luís Vaz de Torres navigated the strait between New Guinea and Australia which now bears his name, but he probably thought Cape York Peninsula was a large island. Next came Dirk Hartog, another Dutchman, who was blown off course in 1616 and landed on an island at Shark Bay in Western Australia. There were two Dutch sightings of Western Australia in 1618, and in 1619, Frederick de Houtman sighted land near present-day Perth and sailed by the area Dirk Hartog had encountered earlier. In 1622, the crew of the _Leeuwin_ mapped the coast of present-day Cape Leeuwin, while the _Wapen van Hoorn_ ran aground in Shark Bay. There were numerous other discoveries, mainly Dutch, in the following years.
Abel Tasman discovered Tasmania in 1642 and mapped more of the northern coast in 1644. By this time, Dutch maps were quite accurate in portraying the north, west, and south coast of Australia as well as Tasmania, as evidenced by this map from 1644:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Thevenot_-_Hollandia_Nova_detecta_1644.png/1280px-Thevenot_-_Hollandia_Nova_detecta_1644.png
It wasn't until James Cook landed in Botany Bay in 1770 that the east coast was first discovered, and despite ambitions by the Dutch, French, and Swedish, the British were the first to establish a colony in Australia.
Thanks for the detailed background. Are there any archeological findings from the trade between the Makassar fishermen and the natives found in Australia? If so, have these been dated?
Bonnie Charlie thanks for that history lesson :)
CHeck out the Shipwreck Museum in Fremantle, Western Australia...
Bonnie Prince Charlie
Australia is not a continent....just saying
Man Ofwar: is so...
The Chinese hypothesis has never been proven. It was written by a person with no evidence that it actually occurred just to sell a book or two. I'm quite surprised that this show took it as absolute "truth".
So, who does this now make 1st?
QI do admit that about 80% if things they have said in previous series are how untrue.
He did make the argument reasonably compelling at the time, and a lot of people believed it. I bought the book myself and, to be fair, if you didn't have an intimate knowledge about specific artifacts (particular maps, shipwrecks, coins etc) and maritime trade, a lot of what he said would seem plausible. It took a while for actual experts to pick apart his "evidence" to show he either made it up or was extrapolating wildly. Not surprised that QI was taken in like a lot of others.
Just like the Bible
@@partypiano0729 The people that would eventually be the Aboriginies.. i'd assume...
I love the chemistry between Stephen and Allen
I can't decide whether Alan is actually dim, or just plays the character.
comedians usually pretend they are dumb cuz it's funny
The ancient Greek explorer Phillip Australialoppoulos was the 1st person to discover Australia.
He didn’t physically discover it.
The Portuguese deserve a mention
No European Counties do!! Self Important bunch of .....
@@partypiano0729 Imperialist colonialist racists, amirite?
They are honoured with the timeless australian institution the charcoal chicken shop.
All they did was build new forms of ships to piss off from Portugal quicker
And they invented marmalade,
I don’t like the Portuguese they are rude racist and selfish!
@@MussaKZN mate have you tried their charcoal cooked chiken? Trust me you will love them if you try their chicken.
Tanuki's remark about lagers cracked me up.
What I learnt in school was that it was discovered in 1606 by a Dutchman called Willem Janszoon
It is, the Chinese theory has never been proven.
Abel Tasman....
I think the question should have been re-phrased, "Which European country discovered Australia?" , because we have always been here. (drinking Lager)
Actually Portuguese explorers got to Timor in 1512 (more or less)... do you think they would not get to Australia? It was the Portuguese who mapped Asia before the other European powers were aware of the sea route to get there. The Dutch got there and conquered the Portuguese outposts (good for them). Portuguese ships arrived in Japan around 1543.
Cook had a map showing the gap in the Great Barrier reef when he needed to go ashore for repairs so SOMEBODY had been there
The portuguese were indeed the first in india and the rest of south-east asia, but not australia, new zealand and tasmania. The dutch got there before them.
I'm not 100% sure but what looks close to each other on the map, may be more difficult to reach because of currents, weather, etc. And of course, back in the day, everything before the invention of the steam engine, was powered by sails or oars. The Polynesians probably visited every place in the Pacific because they were always on the move.
The Dutch only chanced upon Australia because they forgot to make a 'left turn' towards their intended goal, the Indonesian Archipelago.
Because, seriously, *whoever* wanted to go to *nowhere?* I suspect that's how most people viewed the possibility of finding land there.
Why do you think the British first saw it as a way to get rid of their Irish? I mean, convicts.
The only thing the Portugese are remembered for (other than founding the trading posts the Dutch later took) was that we kicked them out of most.
@@AudieHolland Erm the Portuguese were pioneers of navigation technology, cartography, they discovered the sea trade route to India, were the first Europeans in Japan, discovered Brazil among many other feats. They basically did it first.
@@mac4boys541 but if the map showed the gap in the reef - how did he hit the reef and have to go ashore for repairs?
For so thing that is claimed not to exist, there's a hell of a lot of it as I found out when I flew over it some years ago. Good view of Uluru as well.
But he had a Captain's hat! I saw it on a short documentary with David Mitchell in it once.
The old Davies creed: "I'll have my balls turned into a rucksack".
It was all connected. New Zealand was connected thousands of years ago, and as we all know, that's where Hobbits come from, so...
There is truth in there. Homo Florensiensis is from that general region of the world, and they were hobbits.
Maoris arrived by boat. New Zealand was the last inhabited place on earth. There was no landbridge
New Zealand hasn't been connected to anything for 55 million years.
Anywhere to get away from those pavlova stealing Aussies, mate!
@Friendly Stranger The Maoris didn't come from Indonesia, because they were Polynesians from a long established Polynesia, possibly the Cook Islands or even Hawaii.
I think you'll find it was Sir John Australia in 1862
I did, was stuck down the back of the sofa.
Those damn kids! How many times have I told them NOT to play with that in the house!
Cook was the first navigator to map the East coast of Australia, which he claimed for the Crown. This was based on the 1495 Treaty of Tordesillas where the pope effectively gave the East of Australia to the Spanish and the west to the Portugal, a long time ally of England. Spain a traditional enemy was ignored. It was expected other European countries would eventually land and claim other areas as had happened in the Americas. A Swedish King even considered a colony in Western Australia. A few days after the first fleet landed to start the colony of New South Wales the French explorer La Perouse arrived expecting to find an already functioning village and was surprised to discovered the British had themselves only just arrived. The Napoleonic wars then prevented other potential European colonial expeditions to Australia.
I'm not sure if anything you've said is accurate , but seeing your comment was posted 4 years ago and you didn't get 1 like, considering this is YT after all, I'm gonna go ahead and give you one. Just because of the wall of text you typed.
Gosh this is so interesting. I came to Australia with our parents 53 ago and didn't know much of this. Yes, I'm officially embarrassed
James Cook was captain of a vessel, but did not have the rank of captain. His position and rank were two different things, but the same word got used for the two.
So he was like Anakin?
I would answer, “We all did, just at different times.”
Anybody got some love for the Australopithecenes?
Absolute Original...............
Australia was even first called New Holland and Tasmania called Van Diemen’s Lans by the Dutch before later being renamed Australia from the Latin terra australis meaning South Land
That’s why we have New Zealand: names after a province(?) of the Netherlands!
Maccassan Indonesians. They traded with northern Australia 300 years before British occupation
I'm pretty sure it was the Seekers
I was actually thinking it would’ve been Dutch explorer Abel Tasman but I feel that is probably a klaxon as well
Geeze, I'm glad the Dutch left, imagine having to push bike around the bloody place! Then again, I'd be legally stoned.... mmmm.
Instead of stoners inhabiting the place though, it was prisoners :p
Only 1/2 the others were jailers.
Jeff H Also many wankers
Is that the best you could come up with? Stay with mallika sherawat, he is more your style.
In my town we ride bicycles. Well not me, I walk everywhere but cycling is very popular. I wish it was more so. You don't need a car in my neighborhood
It was originally called Van Diemen's Land so I'm going with a Captain van Diemen as the discoverer.
Anthony van Diemen was actually Abel Tasman's boss. So in the end nothing more than a bit of pleasing your superior by naming a new land after him. Van Diemen's Land was Tasmania btw.
Fun fact, Australia was first named as New Holland by the Dutch who discovered it. And New Zealand was named after the province of Zeeland, which is why it's 'New' Zealand
The Egyptians rocked up before anyone visited..The left some really cool evidence.
Alan's lisp was much more pronounced back in the good old days. He must have been practicimg since.
Derby in 1766 was first settled by the Dutch. There's a plaque. The first people are related from India!
Stephen never answered the aboriginal question. But my first thought was India as well. I'm not sure about the timing of when Australia separated from SE Asia and when the Indian subcontinent slammed into MidSouth Asia.
Another important fact was that Cook's ship was actually a barque. So instead of being HMS Endeavour it was HMB Endeavour.
What I always thought odd about Cook is that he first makes sighting of land at Point Hicks - which is way down near the NSW-Vicorian border but he doesn't try to land till he sails all the way up into what is now Botany Bay.
Was the guy not curious?
He probably was, but he had a crew and passengers to consider also. He decided on Botany Bay because it was the first adequate sheltered harbour he found with what looked like it had sufficient resources to go ashore and see what it was like. Wouldn't be too good being ashore without decent shelter for the ship (which was anchored offshore) in case there was a rapid change in weather and the ship gets wrecked before you can get back to it.
@@xen0g3n And if a ship got wrecked in Australia in 1770s that's a life sentence, effectively. You're trapped in remotest corner of the world either building civilization from scratch or joining one of the Aboriginal tribes living in hope that Britain or some other European power will send another ship and that they will pass by where you are and that you will see them and that they will see you and pick you up. It was incredibly dangerous.
Alan is so God damn adorable!🥰🥰
@@bigboss3051 yup
The correct answer is , the ancestors of the Aboriginal people when they migrated across the land bridge from Asia during the last ice age. Currently thought to have occurred about 30-40 thousand years ago.
The Isle of Wight, a place used for a 10 second joke in almost every British show
It's a wight of passage for comedians.
Alan is so cute
My GOD! What is Stephen doing at 01:26? Could he not wait until he got home?
Evidence has been found over 5 years ago that there were first people tribes trading with Spanish and South American travelers many years before the Chinese ever traveled near Australia.
Rock carvings have shown ships that were considered lost by their home nations trading goods with some of the island tribes.
The first concrete application of the name Australia corresponds to the Spanish expedition of the Portuguese Pedro Fernández de Quirós, who discovered the archipelago of the New Hebrides (present-day Vanuatu) in 1606, whose largest island was called "Australia (sic) del Espíritu Santo",[22][23] a name that Quirós himself chose in reference to the feast of the Holy Spirit and, to a lesser extent, to the House of Austria (Austria with the suffix "-lia"), to which the Spanish monarch belonged.[23
The "evidence" for the supposed Chinese "discovery" is fanciful to say the least.
Which episode was this from?
Surely the Australian aboriginals discovered it first when they noticed it beneath their feet?
some chap named yansoon was the first european to reach australia. the actual continent was part of Antarctica before it broke away from Pangea
Awww chubby Jimmy Carr
Whats interesting is the aboriginal dreamtime story of the boab tree.
Then have a look at the boab tree.
Once you've done that look up the african boabab tree and look up their story about how that tree came about.
Two trees that look exactly the same, just happen to have a very similar name.
And the stories from both indiginous groups goes something along the lines of a spirit/diety being so jealous of the tree being beautiful that they pulled it out of the ground and jammed it back in upside down.
That's a hell of a coincidence to share so many commonalities, as much as science may favour the idea of aboriginals being from elsewhere their dreamtime stories suggest otherwise.
all of this who discovered who discovered... no one discovered, people were already living there...
Well yeah obviously the Aboriginal Australians were there before anybody, but they are talking about the first people to get there who weren't natives, in relatively modern times. Kinda like the debate on who first came to America and interacted with the Native Americans, whether it be the Spanish, the Dutch, or even the Vikings.
He did properly cover that, but perhaps he could have better formulated the initial question as who were the first non aboriginals to discover Australia.
@Trent Michael Yes, thank you smartie, but we already know that, and the video also fully covered it as well.
And since we already know that the word has another more specific meaning, you simply deciding to deliberately ignore the clear context of this thread which already determined the meaning does nothing to affect the intrinsic sense of my comment at all.
In fact, 'technically speaking', because you have used a capital 'A' for the word which the general meaning doesn't require, it is you who has inadvertantly deployed the narrower definition of 'indigenous Australian', which means that your comment is simply untrue, because everyone is NOT an indigenous Australian Aborigine.
When jumping down semantic rabbit holes, make sure that you don't end trapping yourself in them.
Now, is there anything actually relevant that you would like to say?
@Greg Moonen Literally the first thing Stephen Fry said was that the Chinese were the first people to get there, so I'm not sure what you mean by that statement.
@Greg Moonen Did...did you even watch the video? Maybe you just need to do a better job of using your ears. Because he clearly said that _other than the Aborigines,_ the Chinese were the first to get there. Meaning that the Chinese were the first people to interact with Native Australians, who had been cut off from the rest of the world for potentially tens of thousands of years.
That was literally the point of this question in the first place, to show that it WASN'T Europeans who got there first. Lol idk how you interpreted it in such a way but clearly you missed something man.
Last Human/Cylon remnants of the Galactica and the Colonial Fleet 150,000 years ago
The Portuguese were trading with Japan 250 years before the dutch and English. You think they just missed Australia? New findings add proof to the Portuguese. Google, Cristovao de Mendonca (1521-1524) The Dutch and English just followed Portugal around and grabbed stuff, by the way add France and Spain.
Stephen was only half right. James Cook was a Captain in regard to being in charge of his ship, which in the Royal Navy could me that a mere Lieutenant cou,d still be a Captain.
Everyone knows Chuck Norris stamped his foot as a baby and that's where Australia came from
Discovered? - There were a lot of people there who knew where it was. A bit like the "Red Indians" on that other great landmass that was "discovered"
Surely he was Luhtenant Cooke?
Leftenant is the Army pronunciation.
No, it's: lieutenant, a french word the English stole, but they pronounce it that way
It is spelled Lieutenant. The Royal Navy pronounces it as "luhtenant" whilst the Army pronounces it as " leftenant". The only Commonwealth naval force to pronounce the word as "leftenant" is the Canadian one. That is because the land sea and air forces of Canada were combined. The combined defence force uses army rank and pronunciation. They use the old naval salute with the palm facing down.
Portugal 🇵🇹 :)
it couldn't be discovered as it wasn't lost
They mean "invaded"
@@jmsta2011 Yes, they should mean invaded but so what? This is planet earth we are on...ain't no one innocent.
@@jmsta2011 they migrated there. We are all one race, so there is no such thing as invasion, it's just the reunification of lost cousins. Unfortunately there were far right terrorists among the aboriginals so the poor unfortunates who went there to find a better life had to fight to end the scourge of brown supremacy. Racists classify this as invasion.
i was like... was australia ever lost?
Jo Nyu Something unfound isn't the same as something lost.
Unfound isn't even a word, undiscovered is though.
When nobody knows where you are but you and you don't know how to get back, you are lost.
yeah we are by following the west minster system and mad euro type immigration policies. more lost than ever
Clive Bindley - When you act like a pedantic fucktard, it makes you a douchebag. When you are DEAD FUCKING WRONG it makes you an imbecile.
English is obviously not your strong suit.🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unfound
and before the Chinese, some Egyptians made it there. There's an Egyptian burial site with hieroglyphs somewhere in the wilderness
Bollocks.
I thought we already settled things when we decided that you can't 'find' anything if you don't have a Flag?
So the Americans discovered the moon. Pretty cool ngl
Dirk Hartog or Willem Janzsoon
Nope the Portuguese were first 1520 -1525 cant remember the date
It's like 100 000 years
It was the Dutch in 1362
Apart from the natives... the Indonesians traded with the Aboriginals well before Europeans arrived on the scene
And 50.000 years ago Africans immigrated Australia.
Even the portuguese were there first . There is one document that discrbibes australia on a monastarie
If only the Dutch hadn’t left, then Australia would have become the biggest cycling country ever
I've heard this claim of a great Chinese fleet of discovery repeated many times of late, but I have to ask: is this based upon verifiable documentation, or simply the relativist notion that we have to accord someone else's folk tales the same weight as our own (western, that is) historical records?
Yeah it is true
How come Alan says so much correct and interesting stuff and gets no points for it? This is outrageous!
He gets points in the background. The Qi elves are rigorously counting points in the background; it’s just weighted to go negative
Portuguese discovered Australia Cristóvão de Mendonça in 1522, two and a half centuries before Captain Cook, that´s a fact!
Australia had hundreds of indigenous nations already so the Portuguese were 60 000 years too late.
@@stkfc7440 And so what?? Don’t you understand that they where isolated and didn’t know the existence of other people!?
@@stkfc7440 and the world didn’t know Austrália exist too!
@@stkfc7440Ignorant people always with the same argument, this is very easy to understand!
@Joeseph Smith No, thats a fact!
No mention of the Portuguese. Really ? East Timor 1512 etc........ Dutch , English...LOL
2020 and some jokes would Never fly today..
@Starscream91 Back then maybe, PC has taken Europe by storm.
I don't understand the logic behind this sort of question. Or the denial of any "discovery" based on "when" it was made.
Such questions should therefore be more specific, and include e.g. "first", because the word "discover" doesn't necessarily imply "first/second/third", nor does it negate someone having discovered the same thing already. Its simply a word for find/revealing/understanding something that was previously unknown. Ie. "discovery" can happen at any time and in any order.
So James Cook therefore _did_ indeed discover Australia, but he wasn't the first. Likewise, Christopher Columbus discovered America, though also wasn't the first (or second, or third, or fourth...).
Also, what is often left out is " *who* the discovery was *for* " (ie. who it affected). with James Cook (and European explorers), he discovered Australia for _Europe and the Western World_ . The Chinese for the Chinese, The Aborigines (whose given name/title literally even implies they were the first) for themselves, etc.
How can someone discover a country that was never lost and was inhabited for centuries.
Australia was never connected to Asia. It was part of Gondwana and was last connected to South America via Antarctica.
QI worked so much better with Stephen because it has such a school classroom vibe. Where the one kid who desperately wants to learn is surrounded by idiots cracking wise constantly!
Every UK comprehensive school.
Nonsense. It's just as good with Sandy. You couldn't find any person as good as either Stephen or Sandy to run this show.
@@RhodianColossus At least Stephen pretended to be interested in what the panel had to say. Sandi doesn't even wait for an answer to get into her long monologues.
It wasn't the tectonic plates shifting, it was that the crossing was so difficult that it was only made tens of thousands of years ago. The strait is deep enough that it was still there during the ice age when sea levels were lower.
Untrue. The merged Australia-New Guinea landmass is referred to as Sahul. You should look into it before spouting further nonsense
"it's more fun to call them Redskins" And today the Washington Redskins announced they aren no longer the Redskins.
Bloody finally
They could've kept their name using a number of methods. 1) get permamently sunburnt, 2) paint their skin red, Or 3) convert to native american.
@Greg Moonen The first half of your little joke was okay I guess. The second half was stupid af
Surely it was a group of Polynesians? Discounting the people who live there, of course.
They settled in Tasmania and had no genetic link with the mainland aborigines
@@KRW1612 That only means they had no colonies there. It doesn't mean they didn't accidentally stumble upon it like the Dutch later did. And then they saw it was all wasteland anyway, as far as the eye can see so they just put a sticky for other Polynesians not to go there. Don't go to that big heap of sand and rocks.
It was really Chuck Norris, but he is too modest to take credit.
Captain Cook
Chased a chook
All around Australia.
He lost his pants
In the middle of France
And found them in Tasmania.
Surely the Kiwis discovered Australia first, on their way to New Zealand.
Proud to be Dutch;)
South Africa .
TostiTostelli Good, you should be proud of your nation and your connection to it, that's a trait that's lacking in too many Europeans today.
TostiTostelli you're not much if you're not Dutch
Andy Australia??
Is it just me or does the colour look rather drained?
it'a juat you that looks rather drained.
This should be which non indigenous group RE-discovered the land as there were people there since 60,000 years ago. Maybe even earlier. Pretty sure they discovered it first.
Tazman