Hicks, Zachary (1738-1771), a lieutenant on the British navigator James Cook’s Endeavour, was the first European to sight the Australian eastern coast. At sunrise on April 19, 1770, Hicks called out that land lay ahead. Today, the place that Cook named Point Hicks cannot be identified with certainty. But historians assume that it was the promontory later called Cape Everard, the most easterly point of Victoria. A stone obelisk there commemorates the sighting. In 1970, the site was renamed Point Hicks. Hicks died at sea on May 26, 1771, before the Endeavour reached England.
