Excerpts.......
1200 AD
Scientific investigation of some of the priceless pearls on some of the world's Crown Jewels suggests that they were obtained from the sea off the N. Western Australian Coastline about this time, it would suggest that fishermen of Asian origin regularly visited Australian waters.
Evidence found on N.W. Coastline supports a theory that Chinese seamen are regularly landing on Australian coastline.
1266
Marco Polo makes his great overland journey into China, on his return he wrote of such great riches and of a great land in the south filled with gold that explorers wanted to search for a sea route to China.
1482
Christopher Columbus asks the King of Portugal for funds for a voyage of discovery to discover a sea route to China. His request is refused, he is also of the opinion that the earth is round and not flat.
1488
A Portuguese seaman, Bartholemew Diaz, sails around the Cape of Good Hope and establishes a sea route to the East.
1492
Columbus is finally given funds by Queen Isabella of Spain. He sets sail across the Atlantic to discover a route to China but finds his way blocked by the land mass of North America.
1497
The great Navigator, Vasco da Gama, sails around Cape of Good Hope and establishes a trading route to India.
1512
Portuguese discover New Guinea and mistake it for part of the Great South Land.
1520
Ferdinand Magellan and his fleet of four ships sail around Cape Horn from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific and discover the Philippine Islands.
1567
The Spanish Government sends out Alvaro de Mandoza with two ships to search for the Great South Land, he only discovers the Solomon Islands.
1577
Sir Francis Drake, in the Golden Hind, sails into the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic and sails North, he names present day California - New Albion - and claims it for England. He then sails across the Pacific to Java, thence to Cape of Good Hope and back to Plymouth, arriving there in 1580, he becomes the first Englishman to circle the world and yet he missed seeing our homeland.
1580
A proposal is submitted to Elizabeth I of England that a company be established to trade beyond the Equinoctial Line, however nothing is done about it.
ISBN: 978-0-908492-24-4
A4 Comb Bound with laminated covers. 46 pages
