Original subtitles

Australia today is one of the wealthiest and most highly developed nations on the

planet, boasting enviably high levels of education, healthcare and wages, which

when coupled with its easy-going and laid-back lifestyle, makes for one of

the highest levels of living standards enjoyed anywhere in the world.

The quality of life in Australia is in fact so high that its five major

metropolitan urban areas – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide

– all regularly feature in the top 10 of the Global Livability Index, which rank

cities based on their levels of stability, healthcare, culture,

environment, education and infrastructure.

All of this culminates in Australia having one of the world's highest levels

of life expectancy, with males expecting to live to an average of 81.3 years of

age and females to an average of 85.4 years.

However, Australia hasn't always enjoyed such high levels of life expectancy, nor

any other measures of human development for that matter.

Just over 150 years ago, in 1870, a newborn child was only expected to live

to the age of 34 on average, and just a few decades prior to that, the

livelihoods themselves of many Australians consisted little more than

carrying out hard, arduous labour in a harsh and unforgiving environment.

That is because for much of Australia's early history, the country was governed

as a penal colony for British convicts, who were transported to the far side of

the world to lay the foundations of the first European settlements there.

But how did this country change to such a degree, going from a place where

people were sent to be punished into a place where many aspire to live today?

This is the History of Australia.

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Thank you.

The continent and country that is Australia has been inhabited for the

best part of 65,000 years, with humans first migrating there from Southeast

Asia at the end of the last ice age.

These early explorers were the first people to call Australia home,

eventually spreading out and settling all over the gigantic landmass

stretching from the Torres Strait Islands in the north all the way to

Tasmania in the south.

These were the ancestors of the modern Aboriginal peoples, who over the

subsequent millennia formed the first nations of Australia, comprising over

500 different tribal groups, each with their own set of languages and

territories.

Life in Aboriginal Australia would continue undisturbed in much the same

way for countless generations.

That was until the occurrence of an event in the early 17th century that

would change the lives of the native peoples of Australia and their

descendants forever.

The Arrival of Europeans During

the Great Age of Discovery, which lasted from the late

15th to 17th centuries, countless numbers of Europeans embarked on ships

to explore the unknown corners of the world and develop trade networks to the

exotic markets of Asia or the Americas.

As the black spaces and maps of the globe began to be filled in, a

hypothetical theory that dated back to the times of antiquity began to

resurface amongst the more enlightened members of European society.

It proposed that in relation to the composition of the world's continents in

the northern and southern hemispheres, the land masses in each would need to be

balanced in order to maintain equilibrium in the world.

Thus, there should theoretically be a great continent situated somewhere in

the southern hemisphere which had yet to be discovered.

This southern land, or Terra Australis as it was called in Latin, was

eventually sighted by European eyes in the early 1600s.

when a Dutch vessel under the command of William Janszoon made the first

documented landfall on the Australian coast in the year 1606.

During this time, the Dutch were one of the pre-eminent pioneering nations that

were mapping and exploring the world during the Age of Discovery, and by the

first decades of the 17th century, they had established an extensive maritime

trading network that stretched from Europe to South America, Africa, India

and the Far East.

It was Asia in particular that caught the attention of Dutch merchant

explorers, who were looking to cash in on the lucrative spice trade that was

centred on the islands that now form part of Indonesia.

They subsequently established a private trading company to finance the

exploratory expeditions to these lands, with the Dutch East India Company, as it

became known, employing navigators such as William Janszoon to captain and lead

the voyages en route to the East Indies. In the following decades, Further

sightings of the Australian coastline were made and charted on maps by more

Dutch explorers, like Dirk Hartog, who landed at Shark Bay in 1616, and Jan

Frans, who charted parts of the southwestern corner of Australia in

1622.

Other separate voyages saw the northern and southern coastlines mapped in the

late 1620s, but the most notable of these early expeditions was that led by

Abel Tasman in 1642.

who reached van Diemen's land, later to be renamed Tasmania in honour of his

discovery, as well as citing New Zealand and Fiji.

The Dutch discoveries of this new land promptly led them to name it New Holland

on the maps at the time. However, the idea of sending Dutch colonists out to

such a remote and seemingly inhospitable territory was never deemed cost

-effective by the Dutch East India Company, whose primary focus remained on

the invaluable spice trade.

Consequently, further explorations of Australia by Europeans halted almost

entirely for the next 100 years.

It was only during the voyages of Captain James Cook to the South Pacific

in the 18th century that interest in Terra Australis was once again renewed.

In the course of three separate expeditions, between 1768 and 1779,

Captain Cook carried out the most pioneering exploration of the Pacific

Ocean, ever yet conducted by a European navigator.

This included exploration of not just Australia and New Zealand, but also

other Pacific islands such as Hawaii, as well as Fiji.

It was in April 1770 that he first sighted the eastern shore of Australia,

and subsequently went ashore with some of his crew from the HMS Endeavour,

naming the area Botany Bay, on account of the numerous natural specimens

collected by the ship's botanist, Joseph Banks.

After spending one week exploring the surrounding area and attempting to

interact with the local Aboriginals, Captain Cook raised anchor and sailed

further north, exploring other areas up the coast and claiming the entire area

which they named New South Wales for Britain.

After arriving back home in 1771, Captain Cook relayed the tales of his

discoveries to the government, as well as his judgement on the suitability of

the area around Botany Bay.

for a potential British colonial settlement.

Despite undertaking two further journeys to the Pacific over the next decade,

Cook would never again return to Australia, for he was killed on the

island of Hawaii in 1780, whilst on his third and final voyage.

Captain Cook was, however, not the only European navigator exploring the waters

around Australia during this time, for in 1772, the French captain and

privateer, Marc-Joseph Marion Dufresne, landed on Tasmania whilst on his way to

map the South Seas.

Additionally, that same year, fellow Frenchman Louis Alenot de Saint-Alenon

formally laid claim to the western coast of Australia in the name of France,

overriding the Dutch claims to New Holland from the previous century.

Although both Britain and France formally declared the two sides of the

continent to be part of their respective empires, any effort to follow up on

these claims with colonial settlements failed to materialize on account of

their distance from Europe and ambiguity as to how such action would be

implemented. In the end, it would be events that unfolded across the Atlantic

Ocean in North America that would ultimately force the hand of the British

in descending colonists to the land of New South Wales.

In 1775, the 13 colonies in America broke out in armed rebellion against

British rule.

In the resulting Revolutionary War, which lasted eight years, the American

rebels successfully shook off British rule and declared their independence,

forming the United States of America.

With that, Britain lost some of the most valuable colonies of its empire, which

was not only a problem in itself, but also because for well over the past

century, Britain had effectively transported criminals convicted of petty

crimes to the American colonies as a means of populating them.

With this option no longer available, the British government began to develop

plans to ship its convicts to Australia instead, and have them form the new

colonies there in order to compensate for the loss of America.

With that, the 11 ships of the First Fleet, carrying 1,400 people, left

Britain in May 1787, bound for Australia.

They first landed at Botany Bay in the following January of 1788, but quickly

found the area unsuitable for settlement.

despite the recommendations reported by Captain Cook some year earlier.

The captain of the First Fleet, Arthur Phillip, instead chose to sail further

north to another site, which was found to have an excellent natural harbour.

Upon arriving there, Phillip assumed the powers of governor of the new colony and

named the site Sydney Cove, thus marking the beginning of British settlement on

the great southern continent.

Further convicts were transported on board the 2nd and 3rd Fleets of 1790 and

1791, respectively, and upon their arrival in Sydney, formed the nucleus of

the nascent colony.

These convicts and their jailers continued to make up the majority of New

South Wales' population in the early years, although as time passed, more and

more of the initial convicts were emancipated into free citizens after the

terms of their penal sentences expired.

the result of this was a burgeoning free civilian population which was also

supplemented by the retired soldiers of the colony as well as an increasing

number of free settlers arriving from britain each year this rapid increase in

population however brought with it its own set of social problems in march

eighteen o four the first ever convict rebellion broke out in the castle hill

area of the settlement it was quickly suppressed by the colonial authorities

Although just four years later, the very same regiment that put down the

rebellion deposed the then colonial governor, William Bly, in a coup d'etat.

The Rum Rebellion of 1808, so named after the illicit rum trade the soldiers

of the colony participated in, marked the first and only successful arms

takeover of a government in Australian history.

Following a brief period of military rule, Lachland Macquarie was appointed

as the new governor of New South Wales and promptly set about improving the

colony's civil infrastructure.

The successful establishment of Sydney as a colony proved to the British

authorities that Australia was indeed a viable and tenable option for expanding

the dominions of the empire.

However, the success of Sydney had also reached the ears of the French, who were

also exploring the continent for themselves around the same time that the

British were establishing their colony.

The Comte de la Perouse's expedition of 1788 and Nicholas Borden's expedition of

1800 observed the British activity in Sydney and reported back their findings

to their superiors in Paris, which duly raised the possibility of France

establishing a colony of its own in Australia.

In response to this, Britain increased its efforts to establish more colonies

across the Great Southern Continent, both to cement its control over the

region and, at the same time, deprived the French of any colonial ambitions.

Consequently, as the 19th century progressed, a new mix of both penal and

free British settlements appeared right across Australia, with Launceston and

Hobart being founded in the 1800s, the Moreton Bay penal settlement established

in 1824, Perth and the Swan River colony of Western Australia in 1829,

Melbourne, in what would later become the colony of victoria in 1835 and south

australia centered on the city of adelaide in 1836 all this settlement by

europeans however quickly had an effect on the native aboriginal peoples of the

region whose land after all this was knowing full well the hardships they

would face whilst trying to establish colonies on the other side of the world

the british initially employed a policy of cooperation and understanding with

the Aboriginal Australians so that they could gain their trust and help them

survive in an otherwise unknown land.

Nevertheless, despite the well-meaning intentions of the British, there was

something being carried on board their ships that would do great, irreparable

damage to the relationship between them and the Aboriginal people of Australia

for years to come.

That something was disease.

Due to the relative isolation of the indigenous population over the past 60

,000 years, they had little natural immunity to many of the diseases carried

by Europeans.

An outbreak of smallpox in April 1789 killed about half the aboriginal

population of the Sydney region, while only one death was recorded among the

British settlers.

Further epidemics of not only smallpox, but other diseases, such as measles,

influenza, typhoid and tuberculosis, continued into the 19th century, but

resulted in high death rates in Aboriginal communities.

In conjunction with the outbreak of disease, relations between the British

and Aboriginal peoples were further strained by cultural misunderstandings,

which often led to the outbreak of conflict.

For example, the Aboriginal people viewed any animal, native or not, on

their land as fair game to be hunted, whereas the British viewed this as

poaching of their livestock.

Furthermore, the settlers, in need of communicating with the Aboriginal

peoples, occasionally took to kidnapping men, women and children from their local

tribes, teaching them some basic words of English and have them serve as

interpreters between the two communities.

One of the first Aboriginal people taken in such a manner was Bennelong, who

served as communicator between the local Eora people around Sydney and the newly

arrived settlers.

Another important figure from the Aboriginal community at this time was

that of Bungaree, who although was not kidnapped into service, voluntarily

acted as a go-between amongst the colonists and Aboriginal peoples.

So valuable were his services that he was recruited to join the expedition of

Matthew Flinders in charting the Australian coastline in 1802, which

subsequently made him the first Australian-born person to circumnavigate

the country.

By the time Lachlan Macquarie was appointed as governor in Sydney,

initiatives were being made to protect and accommodate the aboriginal peoples

within the expanding british settlements schools and farms were constructed in a

bid to assimilate them into european ways of life and churches and missions

were established to teach the principles of christianity however despite these

measures including the introduction of protected aboriginal land reservations

much of the work done to foster better relations between the two groups was

often in vain

The unrelenting expansion of the British settlements onto Aboriginal land quickly

led to competition over resources, which then resulted in the outbreak of a

series of conflicts known as the Frontier Wars.

Lasting from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, these violent

confrontations were often the result of the attempt of the Aboriginal peoples to

warn off the interloping settlers by attacking their farms, burning crops,

sealing livestock, and killing some of the colonists.

In response, the European settlers would fight back, and amidst this spiraling

cycle of violence, indiscriminate massacres would be carried out on both

sides.

Over the decades of the early 19th century, increasing numbers of settlers

began to arrive in the colonies and push further into the interior of the

country, in search of new opportunities.

For the most part, These continued to predominantly hail from Britain and

Ireland, with the practice of transporting convicts lasting well into

the 1860s.

Although the arrival of more and more free settlers, not just from Britain,

but from other parts of Europe such as Germany, Switzerland and Italy, began to

increase by the mid-1840s to such an extent that calls for the establishment

of local representative government and democratic reform began to be made.

This marked a substantial shift away from the autocratic rule of the colonial

governors and the emergence of the first state parliaments.

One of the primary reasons European settlers chose to move to Australia was

because of the large tracts of land available for purchase, which would then

be turned into productive farmland.

The prospect of land ownership itself was valuable enough to many settlers,

but it was what lay beneath the land that would soon transform the fortunes

of a lucky few.

Gold Although gold deposits have been found back in 1823, it was the discovery

by Edward Hargraves near Bathurst, New South Wales, in 1851 that resulted in

the biggest gold rush in Australia's history.

Within a period of 10 years from Hargraves' discovery, the population of

Australia increased from 430,000 to 1,170,000 by

1861. as men from not only the neighbouring colonies, but from all over

the world, including Britain, America and China, flocked to the gold fields of

New South Wales and Victoria.

The resulting mass influx of miners to the region quickly exhausted the easily

accessible gold supply, and for those who had not been fortunate enough to

strike it rich, the local taxes imposed by the heavy-handed administration

quickly added to a growing list of grievances.

What initially began as peaceful protests, soon gave way to open revolt

against colonial rule, with the Battle of the Eureka Stockade taking place in

December 1854.

Although the rebel miners were defeated and promptly arrested for insurrection,

they were subsequently acquitted at trial, owing in large part to the

support from the Australian public, who shared their plight for fair treatment

and proper representation.

It was here that egalitarianism, especially before the law, became one of

the full marks of Australian societal values.

The gold rush of the 1850s was followed by a wider economic boom in the latter

half of the 19th century.

With this came the development of housing, consumer goods and services, as

well as urban development in the form of more towns and cities, which were being

connected to an ever-expanding rail network.

However, not all aspects of Australian society benefited from the opportunities

available during these times.

with the rural poor increasingly being left out of the equation.

With no other means of supporting themselves, some took to acquiring

wealth through more illicit means and became bush rangers.

In essence, being Australia's version of the American Wild West outlaws of the

same time period, the bush rangers roamed the country districts, committing

acts of robbery against anyone or anything that crossed their path.

Whether it be a stagecoach, a local farmstead, or even a town bank the

exploits of these criminals quickly earned them an often romanticized

reputation as local folk heroes but in some cases such as that of ned kelly

they became infamous and their tales enshrined international legend the boom

years for australia would come to an end by the 1890s with the country entering

into a period of economic depression marked by an increase in unemployment

labor strikes and the emergence of trade unions.

The issues experienced during this time gave rise to an emerging and distinct

Australian national identity, one that still retained ties to the mother

country of Britain, but one which also saw the path ahead to self-determination

outside of colonial rule.

With the dawn of the 20th century, the six separate colonies of Australia,

inspired by the growing national sentiment, concerted their efforts in

pushing for a mandate of federalisation from the Imperial British Government in

London. Following intense negotiations, a bill was passed by Parliament in July

1900, and the Commonwealth of Australia was subsequently proclaimed by the

Governor-General, Lord Hopeton, on the 1st of January 1901, with Sir Edmund

Barton being sworn in as the nation's first Prime Minister.

One of the first major defining pieces of legislation introduced by the new

nation was the white australia policy which barred anyone of non-european

heritage particularly asians from entering the country this was

implemented in order to preserve the predominantly british makeup of

australia's population which contemporaries at the time argued would

help coalesce the emerging nation into a singular cultural and socio-economic

entity in reality it was nothing more than an apartheid-like system designed

to prevent other ethnicities from taking opportunities away from white

Australians.

The early history of Australia had almost exclusively been shaped by the

direct relationship between it and the colonial mother country of Britain.

But as the second decade of the 20th century arrived, the fledgling nation

would find itself irreversibly changed by the outbreak of the First World War.

Although the majority of the fighting took place on the battlefields of

Europe, the war for many Australian soldiers would be defined by their

experience in the Middle East, serving alongside their comrades from New

Zealand in a corps of troops that became known as the Anzacs.

In the Gallipoli Campaign of 1915, troops from Australia, New Zealand, as

well as Britain, France and India suffered appalling casualties in their

attempts to capture the Dardanelles Strait.

from a determined Ottoman Turkish army.

Although the campaign ended in defeat for the Allies, it nevertheless marked a

time of reckoning in the national psyche of Australia, with its troops earning a

reputation for renowned bravery and selfless sacrifice in the face of

adversity.

The later years of the war would see Australian regiments deployed to the

Western Front, as well as continuing fighting in the Middle East, where they

displayed the same levels of courage and determination.

By the war's conclusion in 1918, some 324,000 Australians had served overseas,

with 60,000 dead and 150,000 wounded, the highest casualty rate of any Allied

force during the war.

The following interwar years would see mixed fortunes for the Australian

nation, for though it was granted Dominion status from Britain under the

Statutes of Westminster in 1931, it fell into an economic depression, during the

early 1930s.

Despite the austerity of this period, some of the most iconic Australian

cultural achievements and legacies were forged during this era.

For instance, the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service, later

becoming the airline and national flag carrier of Qantas, was established in

1920, and the pilot Sir Charles Kingsford Smith completed the first

aerial circumnavigation of Australia in 1927.

before going on to complete the first ever Trans-Pacific flight the following

year from Oakland in California to Brisbane in Queensland.

Further legacies, particularly on the sports field, were also established,

with the likes of Don Bradman setting all-time records on the cricket pitch

and the racehorse Far Lap becoming a championship-winning thoroughbred with

victories at the Melbourne Cup, Australian Derby and other races.

Although perhaps trivial, These records and victories brought many Australians

cause for cheer and celebration during what were otherwise dark days of the

Depression.

By 1939, Australia's economic position had at least turned around.

However, its geographical position in the wider Indo-Pacific region would soon

bring it into contention with the expanding territorial ambitions of the

Empire of Japan.

Just as in the previous World War, Australia once again found itself

answering the call to arms from the mother country, with its troops being

deployed across the globe in the defence of the British Empire, from the cities

of Europe to the deserts of North Africa and the jungles of Burma to the Pacific

Islands.

However, unlike in the previous war, Australia suffered several attacks on

its own shores, with the Japanese air force launching bombing raids in the

city of Darwin and other northern towns such as Hun and Tau.

Additionally, the Japanese and German navies conducted submarine warfare in

Australian waters, sinking numerous merchant and military ships, and even

launching a raid on Sydney Harbour in June 1942.

By the time the war was drawing to a close in 1945, Australia found itself

realigning its geopolitical interests, having realised that it could not solely

rely on protection from its colonial overpower, situated on the far side of

the world.

The entry of the United States into the war and their combined operations in the

Pacific Theatre alongside Australian forces undoubtedly resulted in a shift

in diplomatic strategy to be more in line with views in Washington rather

than those in London.

The post-war years witnessed another economic boom which helped shape

Australia into the country that it is today.

The war-ravaged regions of the world, particularly in Europe, saw thousands of

emigres move to Australia in the 40s, 50s and 60s, seeking to build a better

life for themselves.

Such was the scale of migration from outside the usual British diaspora that

the white Australia policy was made redundant in the face of economic and

political reality.

The influx of these newcomers helped boost Australia's economy even further

as they filled jobs in the expanding manufacturing industries and undertook

construction of much-needed housing and civil infrastructure projects.

For much of the latter half of the 20th century, Australia transformed itself

into the go-to destination for many people looking to build a new and better

life.

Its relative isolation compared to the rest of the world shielded it from many

of the wider geopolitical issues of the age, such as the Cold War, although its

closer ties with the USA did see it become involved in the Vietnam War.

during the 60s and 70s.

Furthermore, this step change in foreign policy opened up the conversation to

discuss the country's own domestic issues, specifically confronting the

country's colonial past and the maltreatment of the indigenous

Aboriginal peoples.

The acknowledgement and reconciliation process for indigenous affairs became a

key focus during these years, with efforts being made to address historical

injustices and recognise the plight of Aboriginal peoples over the past

centuries.

The move towards modernity and changing attitudes are perhaps best symbolised

with the inaugural opening of cultural icons, such as the Sydney Opera House in

1973 and the hosting of the Olympic Games in the year 2000, which showcased

the beauty of the harbour city and the nation as a whole to the wider world.

Today, Australia stands as a testament to its ability to adapt and thrive.

even in the most challenging of environments which is perhaps a legacy

of the early colonial settlers who arrived on its shores with so little but

went on to create so much