Cook Sights Eastern Australia

April 19, 1770

Endeavour's lookout Zachary Hickes saw a long low coast from the masthead. Cook named the point Point Hicks and turned north. For the next four months he sailed up the unknown east coast of New Holland, naming Botany Bay and nearly losing his ship on the Great Barrier Reef. At Possession Island he claimed the entire eastern coast for Britain, an act whose consequences for Aboriginal peoples would be catastrophic.