Government:
Form of Government: Constitutional Monarchy
* It has six state governments in all but one, Queensland.
* Queensland has a bicameral government.
* Queen Elizabeth II is head of the state and is represented by a governor,
General William Deane.
* All citizens eighteen and older are required to vote in federal and
state elections and those who don't may be fined.
History:
First Inhabitants:
* The first settler's were ancestors of today's Aborigines.
* They did not build permanent settlements.
* They recorded history and culture in paintings and in rocks and caves.
* They did this by using charcoal, clay, and ocher.
* Archeologists found evidence of regular contact between Aborigines
and Indonesian traders north.
* They probably reached Australia 40,000 years ago from Asia by way
of New Guinea.
* The first whites arrived in the late 1700's and about 30,000 Aborigines.European
Discovery:
* They suspected a "great southern land. "
* They needed to balance the world to keep it from tipping over.
* The Greek phrase used to describe this was "Terra Australis Incognita"
meaning "Unknown Southern Land."
* In 1606, Luis Vaez de Torres who proved New Guinea not an unknown
continent, sailed through the straight between New Guinea and Australia
and showed New Guinea to be an island.
* Also in 1606 Dutch navigator Willem Jansz sailed to what he thought
was new Guinea, but was really Northern Australia.
European Settlement:
* In May of 1870, Captain Arthur Phillip sailed from England with 570
male and 160 female convicts, 200 British soldiers, 30 wives, and a
few children.
* They traveled in 11 ships and the first ships reached Botany Bay on
the east coast on January 18, 1788, while the others arrived on the
20th.
* On January 26th, the first settlement was set up and the first whites
settled in Australia. This was also the beginning of Sydney.Exploring
Land:
* When New South Wales was settled, people didn't know if Australia
was one large mass, or two or more islands.
* In 1798 - 1799 George Bass and Mathew Flinders sailed around Tasmania
to prove that it was an island, which they soon found out.
* The northwestern, western, and southwestern coastlines were
all thoroughly mapped and the eastern coast got mapped after James Cook
discovered it.
* After that, all of western Australia formed one land form, that they
knew about.The Squatters:
* They lived between the 1820's and the 1830's and took advantage of
their land, and their success depended on how many workers they had.
* They didn't own land, and their life had a lot of threats.
* The sheep farmers migrated in the 1830's.
Interior:
* Long expeditions began in the 1830's and from 1839-1840, Edward John
Eyre found dry salt lakes above Adelaide.
* From 1860-1861, Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills were the first
whites to cross the country from south to north, but died of starvation
on the way back.
* John McDouall Stuart made the first round trip from the north to south
coast in 1861-1862.Gold Rush:
* In 1851, gold was found in New South Wales and a few months later,
it was found in a richer gold field in Victoria.
* Thousands of miners came, but only some got rich, so most couldn't
pay their passage back to get back to where they came from, so most
stayed in Australia, which is why the population went up.
Ends of British Convicts:
* It ended in the 1850's sending away convicts, but, however, they
continued to send them away to Australia until 1868.
* Altogether, 160,000 convicts were sent to Australia from 1788-1868.Becoming
a Nation:
* Colonies had self-government by the 1890's.
* Many believed that colonies would be better off a single nation with
a unified government.
* During 1897 and 1898 federal convention drew up a constitution for
Australia and people approved by balloting in 1898 and 1899.
* Britain approved in 1900, so on January 1, 1901, 6 colonies became
states of a new nation.World War I:
* When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, Australia automatically
considered itself on the side of Britain.
* More than 400,000 Australians served in the Australian armed forces.
* The war between Britain and Germany ended in 1914 lasting 4 years.
World War II:
* Australia entered World War II on Britain's side on September 3,
1939 and sent troops to fight German forces in mainland Greece, Crete,
and northern Africa.
* Many troops were brought back to Australia after Japan entered the
war on Germany's side in December of 1941.
* On February 19, 1943, Japanese planes bombed Darwin and in early March
, troops had landed in New Guinea, threatening to invade Australia.
* But luckily, the threat was removed by the United States show of strength
in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May.
* The war ended in 1945.After the Wars:
* The Labor Party governed Australia from 1941-1949 when it was defeated
in parliamentary elections.
* The Liberals won enough seats to form a government with the
Country Party.
* They became a charter member of the United Nations in 1945 and began
to play an increasingly active role in world affairs.
* The country contributed to forces that fought in Korea from 1950-1953.
* In 1951, Australia joined New Zealand and the US in signing the Anzus
Treaty, a mutual defense agreement.
* In the 1960's, Australia generally enjoyed economic growth and prosperity.
Recent Events:
* In 1972, the Labor Party came and Gough Whitlam became the prime
minister. People hoped to force him to resign.
* He refused to resign.
* That year they removed him from office and John Malcom Fraser took
his place until 1983 Robert Hawke became prime minister.
* In 1988 Australia celebrated its bicentennial- the 200th anniversary
of the founding of the first white settlement there.
* John Howard Prime minister (1996-Present)
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