Roggeveen, then 62, had sailed from the Netherlands with three ships, the Arend, the Thienhoven and the Afrikaansche Galey, and 223 men, searching for the southern continent of Terra Australis and a rumoured "Davis Land" in the eastern Pacific. Instead, on April 5, 1722, his lookouts sighted a small volcanic island. Roggeveen estimated that 2,000 to 3,000 people lived there, and his crew became the first Europeans to see the island's giant stone statues.
The voyage fulfilled an old family ambition. Roggeveen's father, Arend, a mathematician and navigation teacher, had studied the idea of Terra Australis and even obtained a patent for an expedition that he never made. His son finally equipped the ships four decades later.
Rapa Nui lies more than 3,500 kilometres off the coast of South America. By the time the Dutch arrived, its population had fallen to perhaps 2,000 to 3,000 from a high of around 15,000 a century earlier, and the islanders' great moai, carved from volcanic tuff and set on stone platforms, puzzled every visitor who came after.
Roggeveen's own fortunes turned. He crossed the Pacific, lost one of his ships, and reached Batavia with the other two, where the Dutch East India Company arrested him for breaking its trading monopoly and confiscated his ships. The name he gave on Easter Sunday has lasted, alongside the island's own name, Rapa Nui.
Key people: Jacob Roggeveen