Australasia

Did the Portuguese Discover Australia?

Two hundred years before Captain Cook, Dieppe map makers placed the Portuguese flag on a large land-mass called Java-la-Grande approximately where Australia appears on today's atlas. Helen Wallis sifts through the cartographic evidence to examine the intriguing question.

The Maoris in New Zealand History

When the British and Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, Governor Hobson declared: 'We are one people'. Today, as Professor Keith Sinclair shows, this hope has still to be realised.

Cook, Darwin and Coral Reefs

Our understanding of coral and coral reefs, believes C.M. Yonge, was greatly advanced by the voyages of Cook and Darwin to the South Pacific.