Australia's highest mountain was named by the Polish–born mineralogist Pawel Strzelecki, who climbed it in 1840. The summit reminded him of the memorial in Krakow to a Polish revolutionary and national hero (who also fought on the American side during the American War of Independence), and Strzelecki named the mountain in his honour.
The mountain is known to the Aborigines as Jagungal (or variations thereon), which means Table Top Mountain.
© Haydn Thompson 2017