| Louis Antoine de Bougainville was a French explorer who spent over 12 years of his life circum-navigating the world. |
At his own expense, he took 2 ships (the Boudeuse and the Etoile) in 1766 to form a colony in the Falkland Islands and guard the entrance to the Pacific. He was forced to hand the islands over to Spain.
On his travels they stopped in Tahiti where they picked up one of the natives (possibly the chief's brother) who joined them on their exploratory voyage and was taken back to France with them.
Although he didn't actually land on Australian soil, in 1768 he came from the Falklands into the Pacific.
On the 6th of June he came across a great reef now known as Bougainville Reef (an outlier of the Great Barrier Reef) before an outbreak of scurvy prevented him from verifying his belief that this was the Australia del Espiritu Santo of Quiros. Soon afterwards he found himself amongst the islands of the Louisdale Archipelago.
Some important discoveries were made before a shortage of supplies forced him to hurry around the north of New Zealand to the Dutch East Indies.
Bougainville Islands and Louisdale Archipelago are named after him.
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