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Europeans exploration (Dutch)
The first Europeans to visit Australia were not the English navigators but came from Holland. -
Captain James Cook
Captain James Cook sailed around Australia in 1770. The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, -
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Penal
From 1788 to 1832, the Colony of New South Wales was officially a penal colony comprised mainly of convicts, soldiers and the wives of soldiers. -
Prisoners
The first 736 convicts banished from England to Australia land in Botany Bay. Over the next 60 years, approximately 50,000 criminals were transported from Great Britain to the “land down under,” in one of the strangest episodes in criminal-justice history. -
Governement boundaries
Governament officials created bondaries for the colonies. -
Commonwealth of Australia
Celebrations surrounding the inauguration of the new Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January in Sydney and at the opening of its first Federal Parliament on 9 May in Melbourne overshadowed Anniversary Day in 1901. -
Canberra
Melbourne served as the national capital until Canberra was completed. -
Aboriginals
On 27 May 1967 a Federal referendum was held,The 1967 referendum made history: Australians voted overwhelmingly to amend the constitution to include Aboriginal people in the census and allow the Commonwealth to create laws for them. -
Australian Act
Following the signing of the Proclamation, Her Majesty presented the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, with a copy of the Act passed by the United Kingdom Parliament. That Act will be framed and displayed publicly in the new Parliament House, along with the Act of the Australian Parliament and the Proclamation which the Queen signed today -
Referendum
On Saturday 6 November 1999, 12.3 million electors of the Commonwealth of Australia participated in a constitutional referendum. Two questions were asked. One of them concerned the introduction into the Constitution of an additional Preamble, although one which would have no binding legal force . More important was the question which asked whether the electors approved a proposed amendment:
