Captain James Cook, the first European to define the outline of New Zealand, has left a permanent imprint on the consciousness of New Zealanders.
James Cook
Personal details
Full Name:
James Cook
Lifetime:
27 Oct 1728 – 14 Feb 1779
Biography
Events In History
17 December 1773
At Wharehunga Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound, 10 men serving on the ship accompanying James Cook's Resolution died at the hands of Ngāti Kuia and Rangitāne.
20 May 1773
During his second voisit to New Zealand in 1773, James Cook released a ewe and a ram in Queen Charlotte Sound. They survived only a few days – an inauspicious start to this country’s long association with sheep.
1 April 1773
In an attempt to concoct a preventative against scurvy, Captain James Cook brewed a batch of beer on Resolution Island in Dusky Sound, using rimu branches and leaves.
16 February 1770
Lieutenant James Cook sighted Banks Peninsula from the Endeavour. The following day he decided it was an island, which he named for the expedition's botanist, Joseph Banks.
9 February 1770
The Endeavour's arrival at Cape Turnagain confirmed that the North Island was indeed an island, not part of a fabled great southern continent.
9 November 1769
James Cook helped his astronomer Charles Green observe the transit of Mercury at Te Whanganui-o-Hei (Mercury Bay), Coromandel Peninsula.
6 October 1769
Ship’s boy Nicholas Young received a gallon of rum and had a headland named after him for being the first aboard HMS Endeavour to spot land in the south-west Pacific.
Main image: Map showing Cook's voyages
Map from 1800 which shows the routes taken by James Cook when he visited New Zealand in 1769-70, 1773 and 1777
