History of Australia

The arrival of the British settlers completely changed the way of life for the Aborigines, having a long-lasting effect on their culture and traditional way of life for all generations that followed.

When the British settlers came, the Aborigines were dispossessed of their land and, much later, "encouraged" onto reserves, supposedly for their protection. They were forced off their traditional hunting grounds, and herded away from the fertile coastal areas where there was plenty of food. White settlers wrecked the very effective native fishing traps, cleared native habitats and reduced the native food supplies, as well as polluting their water.

Massacres of the indigenous people occurred on a regular basis. The Coniston massacre, the massacre at Myall Creek, the "Battle of Risdon" in Tasmania and many others, all were perpetrated against the Aborigines by the Europeans. There were years of conflict between Tasmanian Aborigines and white settlers which eventually resulted in the loss of the purebred aboriginal race from Tasmania - virtually genocide.

The Europeans also introduced foods and diseases, all of which were perfectly harmless to the white settlers, but lowered the life expectancy of the aboriginal people. Simple diseases like Measles and Influenza had devastating effects on Aborigines. Foods containing wheat and sugar resulted in heart disease and obesity among the indigenous Australians. Europeans introduced new flora and fauna which took over native habitat, leading to the extinction of many plants and animals on which the Aborigines relied.

When the aboriginal children were forcibly taken from their families, this directly led to a loss of culture, language, customs and traditions among the Aborigines. When the Europeans first came to Australia, there were around 250 different aboriginal languages in Australia. There is just a fraction of that number now. Many stories from the aboriginal Dreaming (creation legends) have disappeared forever.

Mary Shadd Cary was an abolitionist of African-American descent, who disagreed with the separate, but equal theory of many of her peers in the struggle for liberty and freedom of African-Americans. When the Fugitive Slave Act was enacted in 1859, which denied runaway enslaves a trial by jury and the opportunity to testify on their own behalf, Cary protested that the act jeopardized all blacks residing in the United States and justified their moving to Canada or other countries. She subsequently helped many of the enslaved to migrate to Canada.

No. It would have been a very brave pirate indeed who attempted to attack a Fleet which consisted of eleven ships, guarded by around 250 marines.

The food on the First Fleet to Australia included such items as bread, including a long-lasting "hardtack" bread made from barley; salted beef and pork; peas; oaten meal; cheese; rice.

When the First Fleet pulled in to the various ports along the way, they would also stock up on fresh fruit and vegetables.

Hon John Howard was Australia's Prime Minister before Kevin Rudd of QLD.

Before Kevin Rudd, Liberal John Howard of NSW served as PM from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007.

Kevin Rudd served for roughly two and a half years before losing his job to Julia Gillard, in the process making her Australia's first Prime Minister.

John Howard was Australia's second longest serving Prime Minister.

Ned Kelly was betrayed to the police whilst holding dozens of people hostage in the Glenrowan Inn on 28 June, 1880. The Kelly gang held a shootout with police. Gang members Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne were killed, and Ned was shot twenty-eight times in the legs, being unprotected by the armour. (Controversy has continued over whether Dan Kelly actually was killed, but no real evidence has ever surfaced to suggest he survived and went into hiding.) Ned Kelly survived to stand trial, and was sentenced to death by hanging on 29 October 1880. He was hanged in Melbourne on 11 November 1880.

John Forrest was an Australian explorer from Western Australia. He also became the first Premier of Western Australia.

In 1869, Forrest led the search for Ludwig Leichhardt's expedition which had gone missing while travelling across Australia from east to west. This search was unsuccessful, but it gave Forrest the chance to do what he wished, which was to explore the uncharted areas of Western Australia.

In 1870, Forrest surveyed the route which Edward Eyre had taken in 1840-41 from Adelaide to Albany, across the Great Australian Bight. As the main route from eastern Australia overland to the west, he realised it needed to be surveyed so a road could be built, and later a railway.

Douglas Mawson is important to Australian history because he was a pioneering explorer of the Antarctic.

Mawson was born on 5 May 1882 in Yorkshire, and his family emigrated to Australia in 1884. They settled in Sydney, where Mawson studied geology at Sydney University. Mawson held a position as geologist to an expedition to the New Hebrides in 1903, where he gained invaluable experience. Following this, Mawson came back to Australia where, in 1905, he was appointed a lecturer in petrology and mineralogy at the University of Adelaide.

In 1907, Mawson joined an expedition to Antarctica led by Ernest Shackleton, as a scientific officer, and was one of the first to ascend Mount Erebus and get close to the South magnetic pole. He was offered a place on Robert Scott's Terra Nova expedition but turned it down to lead the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1914, sailing on the "Aurora".

On 2 December 1911, Mawson departed from Hobert on the "Aurora", bound for Macquarie Island, a sub-antarctic island 1500 kilometres south east of Tasmania and 1300 kilometres north of Antarctica. Here, he established a base before leaving on December 23 to explore the Antarctic continent. On 7 January 1912, the Aurora reached a place that Mawson named Commonwealth Bay. A whaleboat was sent ashore on December 8, and the point at which they landed, Cape Denison, was found to harbour an abundance of Antarctic wildlife, including Weddell seals and Adelie penguins.

They do not. They have a version of the Union Flag in the top left corner. The Confederates used the "Stars and Bars" style flag. Similar in some ways, but not identical.

The first official discovery of payable gold near Bathurst, NSW, was made by Edward Hargraves in 1851. Hargraves was assisted by John Lister, a man who had already found gold in the region. Lister led Hargraves directly to where gold was found, at Summerhill Creek, at a site which Hargraves named "Ophir".

There were several problems encountered by Captain Arthur Phillip whilst travelling on the First Fleet.

The main problem was lack of rations. Certain foods did not last long in the salt air and humidity, and the crew and passengers (marines, officers and convicts) were reduced to a smaller amount of provisions. Further, the salty sea air caused some foods to perish more quickly.

The unsanitary conditions among the convicts caused problems. Dysentery was rife below decks, and some convicts died as a result.

At one stage, Phillip was forced to discipline several seamen who were willing to help a small group of convicts in an attempted mutiny. The mutiny did not succeed, as another convict revealed the plans.

Once the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay, Phillip quickly determined that the site was not suitable for a new, self-sustaining colony, so he had to scout for a new site. Botany Bay did not have a suitable sheltered harbour or sufficient fresh water. The soil was poor quality and the timber would not serve their building needs. Phillip headed north, where he found Port Jackson, a better place to establish the first colony in New South Wales.

The earliest recorded visit was by the British ship Signet commanded by William Dampier. It was named on 25 December 1643 by William Mynors who captained the Royal Mary.

Caroline Chisholm did a great deal to help the underprivileged people in Australia during the early years of settlement. Chisholm moved to Australia as a young married woman, around 1830. She was shocked by the conditions experienced by women and new immigrants to Sydney who had supposedly come to Australia for a better life. Many of them had nowhere to live, so lived on the streets of the town. Initially, Caroline Chisholm took some of these women into her own home.

Begging the Governor for a building that could house new female immigrants, Chisholm was able to procure Immigration Barracks. She established it as a home for women who had come from overseas and had no jobs or relatives to care for them. While they were housed there, she also worked tirelessly to find employment for these women. Because of her efforts, she was able to close the Female Immigrants Home in 1842 because it was no longer needed.

Chisholm's next step was to return to England in order to improve the conditions of the migrants on the ships which brought them to Australia. She was unable to secure government support for migrating families, but she did manage to gain free passage to Australia for the wives and children of former convicts. Her nickname was "the emigrants' friend". Whilst in London, she established the Family Colonisation Loan Society. This society provided money needed by migrant families to travel to Australia, including chartering its own ships to transport the people. The society also organised for people in Australia to find employment for these new arrivals, whilst collecting the loan repayments once the migrants were established.

Take a look at the web link to the left for information on Australia's Federation Day.

If you're talking about immigration during the late 1800's-early 1900's, then the life of an immigrant could be described in two ways. Those who could afford to pay the fare stayed in a comfortable area. I suppose they were fed well and weren't crowded like those who couldn't afford the ride. Those people stayed in a part of the ship called the "steerage." It was really crowded. The children slept two to a bed, and married couples shard a bed. If you were single then you'd have your own small bed. They were fed to the point they weren't hungry, but they didn't have a lot of food. They steerage was really crowded and overfilled. (But, it was better than how African slaves had to be on the ships). It wasn't great, but it did get them to their destination.

The Torres Strait Islanders and the Australian Aborigines.

By the early 1850s, the gold rush had attracted a less desirable crowd. Crooks, bandits, claim jumpers, professional gamblers and others came to take advantage of the wealth.

Charles Kingsford Smith, nicknamed 'Smithy', was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia in 1897. He was always very interested in flying and mechanics from a young age and became one of Australia's best-known aviators, though not the first. Smithy completed the first non-stop crossing of the Australian mainland and the first flight from Australia to New Zealand. In 1930 he flew 16 000 kilometres single handedly and won the England to Australia air race. Kingsford Smith is particularly well-known for being the first to cross the Pacific from the United States to Australia, which he did in 1928, in the Southern Cross, a Fokker FVII-3M monoplane. The flight was in three stages, from Oakland, California to Hawaii, then to Suva, Fiji, and on to Brisbane, where he landed at Eagle Farm Airport on 8 June 1928. Kingsford Smith disappeared in 1935 in the Bay of Bengal whilst flying from England to Australia in the Lady Southern Cross. Wreckage from the aircraft was located off the south coast of Burma eighteen months later, but no evidence of the crew was ever found.

The first basketball association was established in Victoria in the 1920s..

umm hello the question was ''when was basketball first played in australia?'' not ''when was it established'' geez :o

Gateshead's population is 78,403.

Australia was not discovered by William Dampier, but he was the first Englishman to land on its shores. On 4 January 1688, his ship the 'Cygnet' was beached on the northwest coast of Australia, at King Sound near Buccaneer Archipelago on the north-west coast of Australia. While the ship was being repaired Dampier made notes on the fauna and flora he found there.

Dampier was unimpressed by the dry, barren landscape, the lack of water and what he described as the "miserablest people in the world" - the native population. His negative reports led to the delay of England's colonisation of what is now Australia. It was not until 1770 that Captain James Cook reported positively on the green, fertile countryside of New South Wales, and England sought to colonise the previously unknown continent.