Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: Who was the first European to discover Madagascar?
By the 15th century, Europeans had wrested control of the spice trade from the Muslims. They did this by bypassing the Middle East and sending their cargo-ships around the Cape of Good Hope to India. The Portuguese mariner Diogo Dias became the first European to set foot on Madagascar when his ship, bound for India, blew off course in 1500. In the ensuing two-hundred years, the English and French tried (and failed) to establish settlements on the island.
One (unproven) hypothesis is that the Azores were discovered in the course of a mapping expedition in 1341 to the Canary Islands, sponsored by King Afonso IV of Portugal, and commanded by the Florentine Angiolino del Tegghia de Corbizzi and the Genoese Nicoloso da Recco. Although not quite described in the 1341 report, Madeira and the Azores might nonetheless have been seen from a distance on the expedition's return via a long sailing arc ("volta do mar") from the Canary islands.
The source of this information is a mystery. It could simply be derived from pure legend, possibly of Andalusian Arab origin e.g. al-Idrisi speaks of an Atlantic island of wild goats (the Caprera?) and another of "cormorants", a scavenger bird (the "sea crows" of Corvis Marinis?) But outside their erroneous axial tilt, the Azores do seem clustered with reasonable accuracy. From this cartographic record, there seems little doubt that both Madeira and the Azores were discovered, or at least sighted, during the 14th century, well before their official discovery dates.
Abel Jansen Tasman, credited as the first European to discover Tasmania (in 1642) and who named it Van Diemen's Land, did not encounter any of the Aboriginal Tasmanians when he landed.
In 1772, a French exploratory expedition under Marion Dufresne visited Tasmania. At first, contact with the Aboriginal people was friendly; however the Aboriginal Tasmanians became alarmed when another boat was dispatched towards the shore. It was reported that spears and stones were thrown and the French responded with musket fire, killing at least one Aboriginal person and wounding several others. Two later French expeditions led by Bruni d'Entrecasteaux in 1792–93 and Nicolas Baudin in 1802 made friendly contact with the Aboriginal Tasmanians; the d'Entrecasteaux expedition doing so over an extended period of time.
The earliest history of Europeans arriving on these islands is when Captain Cook of the United Kingdom landed in these islands in 1775 at a time when there were reportedly 70,000 Kanaks living in the archipelago. Cook gave the name "New Caledonia" to these islands, after Caledonia, his Scottish highlands.
British missionaries of the London Missionary Society (LMS) arrived in Antananarivo in 1820 during the reign of King Radama I. The subsequent spread of Christianity in Madagascar was coupled with the introduction of solfège as missionaries developed Malagasy-language hymns for their nascent church. The first wave of missionaries was obliged to depart Madagascar under Ranavalona I in 1836, but the hymns they developed became anthems for early Malagasy converts persecuted under the Queen's traditionalist policies. In 1871, an LMS missionary (J. Richardson) improved the rhythm and harmony of these original hymns, which were considerably influenced by European musical styles such as quadrilles and waltzes. Originally, church music was performed by slaves seated in groups of four to five at the front of the church. By the 1870s a more European congregational style had been adopted with all members of the church rising to their feet to sing together.
None of the Azores islands will be officially discovered until nearly a century later, in the 1430s and 1440s. They could simply be purely legendary, possibly of Andalusian Arab origin (e.g. al-Idrisi speaks of an Atlantic island of wild goats (the Cabras) and another of "cormorants", a scavenger bird, possibly the "sea crows" of Corvis Marinis?). But outside their erroneous axis tilt, the Azores do seem clustered with reasonable accuracy on the Medici atlas. One (unproven) possibility is that the Azores were indeed discovered, or at least seen from a distance, quite by accident, by the aforementioned 1341 mapping expedition on their return via a long sailing arc ("volta do mar") from the Canary islands.
The Malagasy language is of Malayo-Polynesian origin and is generally spoken throughout the island. The numerous dialects of Malagasy, which are generally mutually intelligible, can be clustered under one of two sub-groups: eastern Malagasy, spoken along the eastern forests and highlands including the Merina dialect of Antananarivo; and western Malagasy, spoken across the western coastal plains. French became the official language during the colonial period, when Madagascar came under the authority of France. In the first national Constitution of 1958, Malagasy and French were named the official languages of the Malagasy Republic. Madagascar is a francophone country, and French is mostly spoken as a second language among the educated population and used for international communication.
The Malagasy language is of Malayo-Polynesian origin and is generally spoken throughout the island. The numerous dialects of Malagasy, which are generally mutually intelligible, can be clustered under one of two subgroups: eastern Malagasy, spoken along the eastern forests and highlands including the Merina dialect of Antananarivo, and western Malagasy, spoken across the western coastal plains. French became the official language during the colonial period, when Madagascar came under the authority of France. In the first national Constitution of 1958, Malagasy and French were named the official languages of the Malagasy Republic. Madagascar is a francophone country, and French is mostly spoken as a second language among the educated population and used for international communication.
The Malagasy language of Malayo-Polynesian origin, is generally spoken throughout the island. The official languages of Madagascar are Malagasy and French. Madagascar is a Francophone country, and French is spoken among the educated population of this former French colony. Including second-language speakers, there are more speakers of Malagasy than French in Madagascar .
The navigator Christopher Columbus, with the economic backing of the Catholic Monarchs, first reached the shores of the New World on 12 October 1492, initially believing that he had reached India. This voyage was carried out to expand markets by establishing new trade routes and therefore rival the Portuguese Empire, which was already well established in Asia. Following the success of that first voyage to the New World, others were organised with the intention of exploring and creating new trade routes. On his fourth voyage, Columbus, in 1502, met an unexpected storm and was forced to temporarily land on 15 August on the Bay Islands. In their first explorations of the area, Columbus' group came upon a boat of Mayan origin travelling from the Yucatán Peninsula. The Spaniards were surprised by the large size of the vessel. Columbus detained the vessel and examined the cargo, which contained cocoa beans that he called "almonds" in his diary. However, he did not attach importance to these, and after this original inspection he let the boat proceed with its cargo.
The history of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land. The first European explorer to sight New Zealand was Dutch navigator Abel Tasman on 13 December 1642. The Dutch were also the first non-natives to explore and chart New Zealand's coastline. Captain James Cook, who reached New Zealand in October 1769 on the first of his three voyages, was the first European explorer to circumnavigate and map New Zealand. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and various Māori chiefs, bringing New Zealand into the British Empire and giving Māori the same rights as British subjects. There was extensive British settlement throughout the rest of the century and into the early part of the next century. War and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand's land passing from Māori to Pākehā (European) ownership, and most Māori subsequently became impoverished.
Leif Erikson or Leif Ericson ( 970 – c. 1020) was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He was the first known European to have set foot on continental North America (excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada. Later archaeological evidence suggests that Vinland may have been the areas around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and that the L'Anse aux Meadows site was a ship repair station.
Historian Alwyn Ruddock claimed to have found evidence that the navigator Giovanni Cabot ('John Cabot') who discovered North America in 1497 {received backing from the Italian community in London for his voyage to North America. In particular, she suggested he found a patron in the form of Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, an Augustinian friar who was also the deputy to the papal tax collector Adriano Castellesi. Ruddock suggested that it was Carbonariis, who certainly accompanied Cabot's 1498 expedition and who was on good terms with the King, who introduced the explorer to Henry VII for the discovery expedition. Beyond this, Ruddock claimed that Cabot received a loan from an Italian banking house in London 'to go and discover new lands'.
László Magyar was born on November 13, 1818 in Szombathely, Hungary, and lived 17 years in Ponte de Cuio, Angola, where he died on November 9, 1864. His geographical explorations, as well as his ethnological research, were supported by his father-in-law, the king of Bié. The king's relations, as well as his donation of 300 slaves, enabled Magyar to go on six exploring journeys in Angola. Unlike other European travelers, he did not only explore one area, but also described the life of the people living there.
The African people called him "Mister What-Is-This", because he always asked them questions about his interests: the local people, their habits and the way they administered themselves. Magyar spent over a decade living among the native people and learning their languages.
Tea was first introduced to Europe by Italian traveler Giovanni Battista Ramusio, who in 1555 published "Voyages and Travels", containing the first European reference to tea, which he calls "Chai Catai"; his accounts were based on second-hand reports.
Although Fuegians from Patagonia may have visited the Falkland Islands in prehistoric times, the islands were uninhabited when Europeans first discovered them. Claims of discovery date back to the 16th century, but no consensus exists on whether early explorers discovered the Falklands or other islands in the South Atlantic. The first recorded landing on the islands is attributed to English captain John Strong, who, en route to Peru's and Chile's littoral in 1690, discovered the Falkland Sound and noted the islands' water and game.
The History of New Zealand dates back to at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land. The first European explorer, the Dutch Abel Tasman, came to New Zealand in 1642. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the British Crown and various Māori chiefs, bringing New Zealand into the British Empire and giving Māori equal rights with British citizens. There was extensive European and some Asian settlement throughout the rest of the century. War and the imposition of a European economic and legal system led to most of New Zealand's land passing from Māori to European ownership, and most Māori subsequently became impoverished.
In 1427, São Miguel became the second of the islands discovered by Gonçalo Velho Cabral to be settled by colonists from continental Portugal. This date is uncertain, as it is believed that the island was discovered between 1426 and 1437 and inscribed in portolans from the middle of the 14th century. Its discovery was later recorded by Father Gaspar Frutuoso in the seminal history of the Azores, "Saudades da Terra", as he began: ""This island of São Miguel where...we are, is mountainous and covered in ravines, and it was, when we discovered it, covered in trees...due to its humidity, with its water showers and ravines warm with sun...""
Medieval European maps applied the name "Niger" to the middle reaches of the river, in modern Mali, but "Quorra (Kworra)" to the lower reaches in modern Nigeria, as these were not recognized at the time as being the same river. When European colonial powers began to send ships along the west coast of Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Senegal River was often postulated to be the seaward end of the Niger. The Niger Delta, pouring into the Atlantic through mangrove swamps and thousands of distributaries along more than , was thought to be no more than coastal wetlands. It was only with the 18th-century visits of Mungo Park, who travelled down the Niger River and visited the great Sahelian empires of his day, that Europeans correctly identified the course of the Niger and extended the name to its entire course.
On November 3, 1493, Christopher Columbus landed on a rugged shore on an island that he named Dominica. On the same day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa María la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Todos los Santos), he arrived at Guadeloupe (Santa María de Guadalupe), which he explored between November 4 and November 10, 1493. The exact course of his voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming many islands including Santa María de Montserrat (Montserrat), Santa María la Antigua (Antigua), Santa María la Redonda (Saint Martin), and Santa Cruz (Saint Croix). He also sighted and named the island chain of the Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes (the Virgin Islands), and named the islands of Virgen Gorda. He continued to the Greater Antilles, and landed on the island of San Juan Bautista, present day Puerto Rico, on November 19, 1493. His men rescued two boys who had just been castrated by their captors.
Local tales of a "song'aomby" (Malagasy for "cow that is not a cow"), or pygmy hippopotamus, led French naturalist Alfred Grandidier to follow a village headman to a marsh in southwestern Madagascar, a site called Ambolisatra, which became the first known subfossil site in Madagascar. In 1868, Grandidier uncovered the first subfossil remains of lemurs—a humerus from "Palaeopropithecus" and a tibia of a sifaka. The "Palaeopropithecus" remains were not described for several decades, and it took decades more for the remains to be correctly paired with other sloth lemur remains. It was not until 1893 that giant lemur species were formally described, when Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major discovered and described a long, narrow skull of "Megaladapis madagascariensis" in a marsh. His discoveries in various marshes of central and southwestern Madagascar sparked paleontological interest, resulting in an overabundance of taxonomic names and confused assemblages of bones from numerous species, including non-primates. Specimens were distributed between European museums and Madagascar, often resulting in the loss of field data that went with the specimens, if the data had been recorded at all.
The first formal European-style school was established in 1818 on the east coast of Madagascar at Toamasina by members of the London Missionary Society (LMS). King Radama I, the first sovereign to bring about half the island of Madagascar under his rule, was interested in strengthening ties with European powers; to this end, he invited LMS missionaries to open a school in his capital at Antananarivo within the Rova palace compound to instruct the royal family in literacy, numeracy and basic education. This first school, known as the Palace School, was established by LMS missionary David Jones on 8 December 1820 within Besakana, a Rova building of great historic and cultural significance. Within months, classes were transferred to a larger, purpose-built structure on the Rova grounds.
France also set her eyes on Madagascar, the island that had been used since 1527 as a stop in travels to India. In 1642, the French East India Company founded a settlement in southern Madagascar called Fort Dauphin. The commercial results of this settlement were scarce and, again, most of the settlers died. One of the survivors, Etienne de Flacourt, published a "History of the Great Island of Madagascar and Relations", which was for a long time the main European source of information about the island. Further settlement attempts had no more success but, in 1667, François Martin led the first expedition to the Malgasy heartland, reaching Lake Alaotra. In 1665, France officially claimed Madagascar, under the name of Île Dauphine. However, little colonial activity would take place in Madagascar until the 19th century.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s there were a number of resettlement plans for European Jews that were precursors to the Madagascar Plan. Paul de Lagarde, an Orientalist scholar, first suggested evacuating the European Jews to Madagascar in his 1878 work "Deutsche Schriften" ("German Writings"). Members of the Zionist movement in 1904–1905 seriously debated the British Uganda Programme, by which Russian Jews, who were in immediate danger from ongoing pogroms, would be settled in what today is Kenya. The plan was later rejected as unworkable by the Zionist Congress. Adherents of territorialism split off from the main Zionist movement and continued to search for a location where Jews might settle and create a state, or at least an autonomous area. The idea of Jewish resettlement in Madagascar was promoted by British antisemites Henry Hamilton Beamish, Arnold Leese, and others. With the cooperation of the French, the Polish government commissioned a task force in 1937 to examine the possibility of settling Polish Jews in the island. The head of the commission, , felt the island could accommodate 5,000 to 7,000 families, but Jewish members of the group estimated that, because of the climate and poor infrastructure, only 500 or even fewer families could safely be accommodated.