The oldest European object from Australia is a pewter plate.

1616 · 1697 · apart: 81 years

Dirk Hartog nailed it to a post in 1616; 81 years later it was taken to Amsterdam, where it is now in the Rijksmuseum.

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• The Hartog Plate1616 · Dirk Hartog Island. In October 1616 Captain Dirk Hartog landed in Western Australia and nailed a pewter plate recording his visit to a post. Eighty-one years later Willem de Vlamingh found it, left a copy and took the original to Amsterdam. It is the oldest surviving European artefact from Australia.

17th century

More amazing facts

• 1613 · 1627 The last aurochs, the wild ancestor of cattle, died in a Polish forest in 1627 — 14 years after Michael Romanov was elected tsar.
• 1614 In a small town near Seville, hundreds of people bear the surname Japón — "Japan". They are thought to descend from samurai of Hasekura's embassy who reached Spain in 1614 and never went home.
• 1614 An Italian doctor spent 30 years weighing himself, his food and everything that left his body.
• 1615 · 1620 In 1615 a Japanese samurai was made an honorary citizen of Rome.
• 1615 · 1621 Johannes Kepler spent six years defending his own mother against charges of witchcraft.
• 1618 The Thirty Years' War began when officials were thrown out of a window — and survived.

All amazing facts (1059) →