Marco Polo, the grand explorer, came back from his expeditions to the Southern Hemisphere boasting of finding the uncharted continent, the Terra Australis Incognita. What’s more, he claimed, there was a kingdom there, Locach, with gold “so plentiful that none who did not see it could believe it.” The descriptions were enough to motivate many European rulers to sponsor many brave explorers on expeditions to find the new great land. The Netherlands sent Abel Tasman.

On this day, December 13, in 1642, following map directions laid out in advance, Abel Tasman’s expedition sighted the shore of the continent of New Zealand, the first European to discover the land.

Believing he had come to the tip of South America, Tasman renamed it it Staten Landt (the other Staten Island, off the coast of Argentina, also found by Dutch explorers.) After a few run-ins with the natives, and with nothing to show for his voyages, Tasman returned home empty handed. No gold, no route to Asia. Tasman would not be picked again for any voyages, and for 100 more years, Australia and New Zealand would lie virtually untouched by Europe.