Australia

History

The first inhabitants of Australia were the Aborigenes, who migrated at least 40,000 years ago from Southeast Asia. There may have been between a half million to a full million Aborigenes at the time of European settlement, today about 350,000 mixed live in Australia.

Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish ships sighted Australia in the 17th century. The Dutch landed at the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1606. In 1616 the territory became known as New Holland. The British arrived in 1688, but it was not until Captain James Cook's voyage in 1770 that Great Britain claimed possession of the vast island, calling it New South Wales. A British penal colony was set up at Port Jackson, now known as Sydney in 1788, and about 161,000 transported English convicts were settled there until the system was suspended in 1839.

Free settlers and former prisoners established six colonies: New South Wales 1786, Tasmania (then Van Diemen's Land) 1825, Western Australia 1829, South Australia 1834, Victoria 1851, and Queensland 1859.

Various gold rushes attracted settlers, as did the mining in other minerals. Sheep farming and grain soon grew into important economic enterprises.