Frommer's Australia from $50 a Day 13th Edition - To Parent Directory

AUSTRALIAN HISTORY 101 639
convinced Australia could make a good
■ 1986 Queen Elizabeth II severs the
colony. It would also reduce Britain’s Australian Constitution from Great
overflowing prison population, as England
could no longer transport convicts
Britain’s.
■ 1988 Aborigines demonstrate as
Australia celebrates its Bicentennial
to the United States of America following
the War of Independence.
entry into Sydney Harbour.
with a re-enactment of the First Fleet’s
The First Fleet left England in May ■ 1991 Australia’s population reaches 17
1787, made up of 11 store and transport
ships (none of them was bigger ■ 1993 Sydney chosen as the site of
million.
than the passenger ferries that ply modern-day
Sydney Harbour from Circular 1994 High Court Mabo decision
2000 Olympics.
■
Quay to Manly) led by Arthur Phillip. overturns the principle of terra nullius,
Aboard were 1,480 people, including which suggested Australia was
unoccupied at time of white
759 convicts. Phillip’s flagship, The
settlement.
Supply, reached Botany Bay in January
■ 1995 Australians protest as France
1788, but Phillip decided the soil was explodes nuclear weapons in the South
poor and the surroundings too swampy. Pacific.
On January 26, now celebrated as Australia
Day, he settled for Port Jackson decision, which allows Aborigines the
■ 1996 High Court hands down Wik
(Sydney Harbour) instead.
right to claim some Commonwealth
land.
SETTLING DOWN The convicts
■ 1998 The right-wing One Nation
were immediately put to work clearing Party holds the balance of power in
land, planting crops, and constructing Queensland elections on an
buildings. The early food harvests anti-immigration and anti-Aboriginal
were failures, and by early 1790, the platform.
fledgling colony was facing starvation. ■ 2000 A 10% Goods and Services tax
Phillip decided to give some convicts becomes part of everyday life in
pardons for good behavior and service, Australia.
■
and even grant small land parcels to 2000 Sydney Olympics held.
■ 2001–2002 Massive bushfires start on
those who were really industrious. In
Christmas Day in NSW and rage
1795, coal was discovered; in 1810
through much of January. Massive
Governor Macquarie began extensive areas of bushland and national parks
city building projects; and in 1813 the destroyed.
explorers Blaxland, Wentworth, and ■ 2003 Bushfires again ravage much of
Lawson forged a passage over the Blue NSW and Victoria. Hundreds of
Mountains to the fertile plains beyond. homes are burnt to the ground in the
When gold was discovered in Victoria
in 1852, and in Western Australia 12 faces a severe drought.
capital city, Canberra. The country
years later, hundreds of thousands of
immigrants from Europe, America, and China flooded into the country in search
of their fortunes. By 1860, more than a million non-Aboriginal people were living
in Australia.
The last 10,000 convicts were transported to Western Australia between 1850
and 1868, bringing the total shipped out to Australia to 168,000.
FEDERATION & THE GREAT WARS On January 1, 1901, the six states
that made up Australia proclaimed themselves to be part of one nation, and the
Commonwealth of Australia was formed. In the same ceremony, the first Governor
General was sworn in as the representative of the Queen, who remained
head of state. In 1914, Australia joined the Mother Country in war. In April the
following year, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) formed