Australia–United Kingdom relations
In 1766 during his first voyage to the Pacific, Royal Navy captain James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. Seventeen years later, following the loss of its American colonies in 1783, the British Government sent a fleet of ships, the "First Fleet", under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, to establish a new penal colony in New South Wales. A camp was set up and the flag raised at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, and the British Crown Colony of New South Wales was formally promulgated on 7 February 1788. Further Crown Colonies were established in Van Diemen's Land (now known as Tasmania) in 1803; Swan River Colony (now known as Western Australia) in 1828; South Australia in 1836; Victoria in 1851; and Queensland in 1859. The six colonies federated in 1901 and the Commonwealth of Australia was formed as a Dominion of the British Empire.
Australia–New Zealand relations
The first European landing on the Australian continent occurred in the Janszoon voyage of 1605–06. Abel Tasman in two distinct voyages in the period 1642–1644 is recorded as the first person to have coastally explored regions of the respective landforms including Van Diemen's Land – later named for him as the Australian state of Tasmania. The first voyage of James Cook stands as significant for the circumnavigation of New Zealand in 1769 and as the European discovery and first ever coastal navigation of Eastern Australia from April to August 1770. The European settlement of Australia and New Zealand, then referred to as the colony of New South Wales, dates from the arrival of the First Fleet into Cadi/Port Jackson on Australia Day, 1788.