1632-1633 - Tasman entered the service of the Dutch East India Company.
1634 - His first voyage of exploration to Ceram Island as captain of the Mocha.
1639 - He sailed under Commander Mathijs Hendrickszoon Quast on an expedition in search of the “islands of gold and silver” in the seas east of Japan.
1642 - Leaving Batavia on the 14th of August, with two ships, the Heemskerk and Zeehaen, Tasman sailed to Mauritius then southward and eastward, reaching his most southerly latitude of 49° S at about 94° E.
- Convinced by the swell that the passage to Chile existed, Tasman now turned northeast, and on the 21st of January he discovered Tonga and on February 6 the Fiji Islands.
1643 - Turning northwest, the ships reached New Guinea waters on April 1 and Batavia on the 14th of June, completing a 10-month voyage on which only 10 men had died from illness.
1647 - Tasman commanded a trading fleet to Siam, and in the following year he commanded a war fleet against the Spaniards in the Philippines.
1659 - Died , probably before on the 22nd of Octotober, certainly on the 5th of February.
In 1642 Abel Janszoon Tasman 'discovered' New Zealand, while looking for the Great Southern Continent on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. There was a brief and bloody encounter with Maori in...