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Britain arrives with convicts
In 1770, Captain James Cook chartered the east coast of Australia and claimed it for Britain. The new outpost was put to use as a penal colony and on 26 January 1788, the First Fleet of 11 ships carrying 1,500 people – half of them convicts – arrived in Sydney Harbour. -
Squatters take land
By the 1820s, many soldiers, officers and emancipated convicts had turned land they received from the government into flourishing farms. Settlers or 'squatters' pushed into Aborigine's land. In 1825, a party of soldiers and convicts settled in the territory of the Yuggera people, close to modern-day Brisbane. -
Squatters continue to colonize
Perth was settled by English gentlemen in 1829. It was a rather peaceful attempt... verbally. -
Sailing squatter
In 1835 a squatter sailed to Port Phillip Bay and chose the location for Melbourne. -
Australia strikes boomin' gold!
Gold was discovered in New South Wales and central Victoria in 1851, luring thousands of young men and some adventurous young women from the colonies. They were joined by boat loads of prospectors from China and a chaotic carnival of entertainers, publicans, illicit liquor-sellers, prostitutes and quacks from across the world. -
Australia becomes a nation
Australia’s six states became a nation under a single constitution on 1 January 1901. Today Australia is home to people from more than 200 countries. -
War in Australia
The First World War had a devastating effect on Australia. There were less than 3 million men in 1914, yet almost 400,000 of them volunteered to fight in the war. An estimated 60,000 died and tens of thousands were wounded.During the Second World War, Australian forces made a significant contribution to the Allied victory in Europe, Asia and the Pacific. The generation that fought in the war and survived came out of it with a sense of pride in Australia’s capabilities. -
After the war...
The war ended in 1945, giving many opportunities for jobs and cash. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants flowed swiftly to Australia at this time, many from Europe, many more from western Asia. -
Australia is less up-tight
Like many other countries, Australia was swept up in the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1960s. Australia’s new ethnic diversity, increasing independence from Britain and popular resistance to the Vietnam War all contributed to an atmosphere of political, economic and social change. In 1967, Australians voted overwhelmingly ‘yes’ in a national referendum to let the federal government make laws on behalf of Aboriginal Australians and include them in future censuses. The result was the culminatio -
Australia makes some changes...
Between 1983 and 1996, the Hawke–Keating Labor governments introduced a number of economic reforms, such as deregulating the banking system and floating the Australian dollar. In 1996 a Coalition Government led by John Howard won the general election and was re-elected in 1998, 2001 and 2004.
