Abel Tasman Sights New Zealand

December 13, 1642

The Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, having already sighted the island he named for Van Diemen (now Tasmania), reached the west coast of what he called Staten Landt. A skirmish with Maori in Golden Bay discouraged him from landing. He called it, later, Nieuw Zeeland, and Europeans would not return for another century until James Cook charted its coasts.