Australia » History

In 2000 Australia hosts the Olympic Games in Sydney the most popular ever. In January 2001 Australia celebrates 100 years since its inauguration as the Commonwealth of Australia. Then in November 2001 Prime Minister John Howard was a third term in general elections. In October 2004 John Howard wins fourth term as prime minister.

The first human habitation of Australia is estimated to have occurred between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago. The first Australians were the ancestors of the current Indigenous Australians; they arrived via land bridges and short sea-crossings from present-day Southeast Asia. Most of these people were hunter-gatherers, with a complex oral culture and spiritual values based on reverence for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, inhabited the Torres Strait Islands and parts of far-north Queensland; they possess distinct cultural practices from the Aborigines.

Longer Historical Perspective

In 1768 the British Admiralty instructed Captain James Cook to begin a search for the 'Great South Island' first reached by Dutch sailors in the early 17th century. More than 168,000 convicts were elated but the detection of gold in the 1850s also began to attract free settlers to the Island.

Exploration and expansion followed from the growth in population and by the 1890s, calls for the colonies of New South Wales, Western Australia, Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and Port Phillip (Now Victoria) to federate had became increasingly strong. On 1 January 1901 Australia became a nation.

The Statute of Westminster 1931 formally ended most of the constitutional links between Australia and the United Kingdom, but Australia did not adopt the Statute until 1942. The shock of the United Kingdom's defeat in Asia in 1942 and the threat of Japanese invasion caused Australia to turn to the United States as a new ally and protector. Since 1951, Australia has been a formal military ally of the US under the auspices of the ANZUS treaty. After World War II, Australia encouraged mass immigration from Europe; since the 1970s and the abolition of the White Australia policy, immigration from Asia and other parts of the world was also encouraged.