The first documented European to discover Australia was the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, who landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606. He made the first recorded landfall on the Australian mainland in February 1606. Subsequently, other Dutch explorers charted much of the western and northern coasts of the continent in the 17th century, naming it New Holland. Later, in 1770, British Lieutenant James Cook charted the eastern coast of Australia and claimed it for Great Britain. However, Indigenous Australians had inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years before any European arrival.
