Abel Tasman was born in the Netherlands in 1603. Around 1632, he entered the service of the Dutch East India Company. He was later chosen as second in command for an exploratory voyage in the north Pacific.

In 1642, Anthony Van Diemen, the governor-general of the company, nominated Tasman to investigate the possibility of a Pacific Ocean passage to Chile.

On November 24, 1642, he discovered an island, previously unknown to all but its inhabitants. He named it Van Diemen's Land. It was still called by that name during the days when England used Australia as a prison colony, and so there are many folksongs from the time which refer to being transported to Van Diemen's Land. (The Irish rock band U2 even did a song by that name in the late 1980s.)

People back then assumed, however, that Van Diemen's Land was a part of the main continent. In 1855, the island's name was changed to Tasmania.

Many Americans know of Tasmania primarily because of the Tasmanian devil. In Warner Brothers cartoons, it is a large, brown creature with fangs that travels by turning itself into a mini-tornado.

The actual Tasmanian devil, or Sarcophilus harrissi, is about the size of a badger and has no tornado-like capabilities. Once the little devils roamed the land down under, but because they killed large numbers of livestock and poultry, they were widely hunted and now exist only in Tasmania. A fellow marsupial, the Tasmanian wolf, is believed to be extinct.