The ancestors of the first aborigines may have come from Southeast Asia to what is now Australia some 50,000 years ago. For thousands of years, the aborigines lived a primitive, peaceful, and nomadic life, undisturbed by outsiders.

Until British settlement began late in the 18th century, Australia remained inhabited only by the aborigines. However, as early as the second century A.D., some ancient map makers were indicating the probable existence of a large, unknown continent south of Asia. The actual discovery of Australia followed the expansion of Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish trade into Asian waters.

Discovery and Exploration

Portuguese sailors may have known of Australia's existence early in the 1500's, but there are no records of landings by the Portuguese. In 1606 a Spanish navigator, Luis Vaez de Torres, sailed through the island-dotted strait between Australia and New Guinea that now bears his name.

Also in 1606, the Dutch ship Duyfken sailed along the northern coast in the bay the Dutch named the Gulf of Carpentaria. During the years that followed, Dutch navigators explored several points along Cape York Peninsula and the western coast. They called the land New Holland. In 1642, Abel Janszoon Tasman landed on the island south of New Holland now known as Tasmania. He named it Van Diemen's Land (its name until 1856, when it was officially changed).

The first Englishman to set foot on the mainland was William Dampier, an adventurer, who landed on the northwestern coast in 1688. His unenthusiastic reports did little to quicken English interest in the new land.

Nearly a century passed before the voyage of Captain James Cook. He sighted the southeastern shores of the continent in 1770. Although a large part of New Holland's coastal lands had already been fairly well mapped by then, it was Cook who discovered the most promising region for settlement. He anchored in Botany Bay, near the present site of Sydney. Cook claimed the eastern part of New Holland for Great Britain, naming this area New South Wales.

Settlement

Although Cook's reports of his discovery were encouraging, they might have gone unheeded for some time had Britain not lost the thirteen colonies in North America (1783), where it had long sent convicts to work as indentured servants. The British then turned to Australia as a place to deport criminals. In 1788 a British convict expedition under Captain Arthur Phillip was sent to Botany Bay in New South Wales. The party actually disembarked a short distance away at Sydney Cove, where the penal settlement was established. Phillip became the first governor of the colony and encouraged exploration of the neighborhood.

In 1801–03 the British explorer Matthew-Flinders circumnavigated the continent and charted many of its waters. The Blue Mountains, a barrier to the interior, were crossed in 1813.

In spite of many difficulties, the Sydney Cove colony survived and began to develop. When their terms expired, most of the convicts chose to remain and some obtained land for farming. A native-born generation grew up, and free immigrants began to arrive. Settlements were made at Hobart, Tasmania (1804); on the Brisbane River in Queensland (1824); on the Swan River in Western Australia (1829); at Melbourne in Victoria (1835); and Adelaide in South Australia (1836).

During the middle of the 19th century, the widely separated coastal settlements gradually developed into individual colonies with governors of their own. From 1820 to 1850, population rose from 34,000 to 405,000. Sheep raising for wool export displaced whaling and sealing as the major activity. Sheepmen in search of new pastures crossed the mountains to the interior and "squatted" on (took possession by occupying) the land. Also important to the early growth of the Australian, economy was crop agriculture, particularly wheat farming.

In 1851 gold was discovered by Edward Hargraves near Bathurst, New South Wales. Other finds followed quickly, including the rich deposits of Ballarat in Victoria. Gold brought thousands of people to Australia, and population rose to about 1,146,000 by 1860. In 1892–93, new gold fields were found in Western Australia, at Coolgardie and at Kalgoorlie, which became Australia's most important gold-mining center.

Self-government and National Unity

The gold rushes not only brought more people and increased wealth, but caused new settlements to spring up in the interior and led to the building of roads and railways. The increased settlement gave stimulus to the wool and wheat industries. The most important development, however, was the impetus given to demands for self-government and eventually to union of the colonies.

New South Wales in 1855 was the first colony to be granted self-government by the British. Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia followed in 1856; Queensland, in 1859; and Western Australia, in 1890.

After years of being preoccupied each with its own affairs, the colonies came to realize the need for cooperation. Several intercolonial conferences were held, the first in 1863, but the first federal convention did not meet until 1891. During the 1890's, a constitution was drafted and approved by the colonies.

In 1900 the British Parliament passed the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, granting the constitution. The former colonies became states united in the federal Commonwealth of Australia on January 1, 1901. The first federal Parliament convened later that year in Melbourne. It continued to meet there until 1927, when it was moved to Canberra, the new federal capital. The early parliaments concerned themselves with fostering nationalism and raising living standards. It was during this period also that a "white only" policy (restriction of nonwhite immigration) was adopted.

The World Wars and Modern Development

Australia's isolation was ended by the outbreak of World War I. As part of the British Empire, Australia sent some 330,000 troops (out of a population of only about 4,500,000) overseas during the war. When peace came in 1918, Australia again turned its attention to developing its own resources.

Although some manufacturing had begun, the economy remained dependent primarily upon wool and wheat. Consequently, when the Great Depression struck much of the world in the late 1920's, Australia suffered severely as wool and wheat prices fell. Economic recovery was slow, but it was under way when in 1939 Australia entered World War II as an ally of Britain.

Early in 1942, with many of its troops fighting in North Africa, Australia was suddenly faced with the threat of Japanese invasion. The Battle of the Coral Sea later that year averted this threat. Australia became a vast military base for the South Pacific campaigns. At the peak of its war effort in 1943, Australia's armed forces numbered about 633,400—from a population of 7,300,000.

The years after the war brought increased economic activity and industrial expansion. The need for more farmers and industrial workers led to highly successful attempts to attract European immigrants. The federal welfare program, begun in 1909, was extended, and most social services were transferred to federal control. In its postwar foreign policy, Australia allied itself closely with the United States and participated in Asian affairs. Australian military units fought in the Korean War in the early 1950's and in the Vietnamese War from 1965 to 1972.

In the 1970's, Australia ended its "white only" immigration policy, strengthened its ties with Asian nations, and granted large tracts of land in the Northern Territory to the aborigines. During the worldwide recession of the early 1980's, the country faced its most severe economic problems since the 1930's.

In 1986 the last vestige of British control in Australia was removed when Queen Elizabeth II signed the Australia Act. In 1991 Paul Keating, at age 47, became the youngest prime minister in Australian history. In elections in 1996 the Labor party, after 13 years in power, was defeated. John Howard, head of a coalition of conservative parties, became prime minister. Elections in 2004 kept the coalition in power, and Howard remained prime minister until 2007, when he lost an election to the Labor Party, led by Kevin Rudd .

Newest Australian Fun Facts:

• Apparently the first European settlers in Australia drank more alcohol per person than any other community in the history of mankind.
• Australian mines (one of our most important industries, which accounts for 15% of Australia's GDP) cover 0.02% of Australia's land mass. More land is occupied by pubs. (Can't find any statistics on the GDP here. My guess is: substantial)
• In 1954 Bob Hawke made it into the Guinness Record Book: he sculled 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds. Bob Hawke went on to become the Prime Minister of Australia.

Animals

• There are 1500 species of Australian spiders.
• We have over 6000 species of flies, about 4000 species of ants, and there are about 350 species of termites in Australia.
• Termites are also called white ants, but they're not ants, in fact not even closely related to ants.
• Australia has the world's largest population of wild camels with one hump.
• The Tasmanian Devil does exist, and it has the jaw strength of a crocodile.
• There are more than 150 million sheep in Australia, and only some 20 million people.

Geography

• No part of Australia is more than 1000 km from the ocean and a beach. (The point in the world that's the furthest from any ocean would be in China.)
• Australia has the world's largest cattle station (ranch). At 30,028 km² it is almost the same size as Belgium.
• Population density in Australia is usually calculated in km² per person, not people per km².
• Australians have 380,000 m² per person available. Yet well over 90% are cramming into our coastal cities.
• We call Australian's from Queensland "banana benders", and people from Western Australia "sandgropers".
• Tasmania has the cleanest air in the world.
• The Great Barrier Reef has a mailbox. You can ferry out there and send a postcard, stamped with the only Great Barrier Reef stamp.
• The Australian Alps, or Snowy Mountains as they are also known, receive more snow than Switzerland.
• Melbourne has the second largest Greek population in the world, after Athens.

Other Miscellaneous Australian Fun Facts

• Imagine the fully welded rails of the Ghan train track weren't restrained properly: on a hot Outback desert day they would expand at 200km/hour and at the Darwin end they'd stick out 1.1 km into the ocean.
• Star gazing: under ideal viewing conditions, like in the Australian Outback, the naked eye can detect about 5,780 stars.
• The Sydney Opera House roof weighs more than 161,000 tons.
• The Great Barrier Reef is the largest organic construction on earth.
• Termite mounds are the tallest non-human constructions on earth.
• Yulara, the Aboriginal name of the Ayers Rock Resort, means "crying", "weeping". Nasty tongues say because that's what visitors do when they see their bill...

The final Curious © phrase:

“In America, only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, and in Australia you have to explain what a writer is”

( Geoffrey Cottrell)