Settlement and colonization
New South Wales (1788), Van Diemen’s Land present-day Tasmania (1825), Western Australia (1832), South Australia (1836), Victoria (1851) and Queensland (1859). The Northern Territory was founded in 1863 as part of the colony of South Australia. Victoria and South Australia had been founded as ‘free’, meaning that they were never penal colonies, although they had previously received some prisoners from Tasmania, never from the United Kingdom. Western Australia was also founded free, but later accepted transport due to severe labor shortages. New Zealand belonged to New South Wales until 1840, when it became a colony of its own. Convict transport was not progressively abolished throughout Australia until between 1840 and 1864. From the 1 of February of 1827 until June 12 of In 1831, the Northern Territory was divided by the 20 ° S parallel into Northern Australia and Central Australia. From a small portion of New South Wales, the Jervis Bay Territory was founded in 1915, which covers only 6677 hectares; It belonged to the Australian Capital Territory until 1989, when the latter acquired a government of its own, after which Jervis Bay became a separate territory administered by the Ministry of Territories. The native population, estimated at three hundred and fifty thousand residents towards the settlement, was considerably reduced in the following 150 years, due to infectious diseases together with cultural disintegration and resettlement that the colonizers forced them into in their advance.
Foundation of the colonies
- 1788: New South Wales is founded, extending west to the 135th meridian and including all adjacent islands in the Pacific Ocean. New Zealand was contemplated within those islands and was administered as part of New South Wales.
- 1825: The western border of New South Wales extends to the 129 ° E meridian. In the same year, Van Diemen’s Land is founded.
- 1829: The Swan River Colony is claimed by Charles Fremantle for the United Kingdom.
- 1832: The Swan River Colony changes its name to Western Australia.
- 1836: South Australia is founded with 132 ° E as its western border.
- 1840: New Zealand is founded.
- 1846: Northern Australia (which included what is now the Northern Territory and most of Queensland) is founded with the meridian 26 ° S as its southern limit. Although abolished in December of the same year, the colony formally existed for a brief period.
- 1851: Victoria is founded.
- 1856: Van Diemen’s Land changes its name to Tasmania.
- 1859: Queensland is founded with parallel 141 ° E as its western limit.
- 1860: The western boundary of South Australia changes from parallel 132 ° E to 129 ° E.
- 1862: The western limit of Queensland changes from parallel 141 ° E to 139 ° E.
- 1863: Control over the Northern Territory passes from New South Wales to South Australia.
- 1911: The Australian Capital Territory is founded. Control over the Northern Territory is transferred to the national government.
Own colonial government and discovery of gold
A gold rush started in Australia in the early 1850s. The Eureka Stockade rebellion of 1854 was an early expression of nationalist sentiment – the flag used to represent that rebellion was seen as an alternative to the Australian flag. The gold rushes attracted many immigrants from Great Britain, Ireland, Europe, North America, and China. Between 1855 and 1890 The six colonies individually obtained a responsible government, managing most of their internal affairs even though they were part of the British Empire. The London Colonial Office maintained control over certain matters, mainly international relations, defense and international maritime traffic. Gold brought a period of great prosperity, but eventually, economic expansion ended, turning the 1890s into a period of depression.
Federation and world wars
The 1 of January of 1901, the federation of the colonies was done after a decade of planning and votes, and thus the Commonwealth of Australia as a dominion of the British Empire. The Australian Capital Territory was founded in 1911 in an area formerly belonging to New South Wales in order to delineate the exact location of the proposed new federal capital, Canberra (Melbourne was the capital from 1901 to 1927). Control over the Northern Territory was transferred from South Australia to the Commonwealth in 1911. Australia participated in the First World War willingly; many Australians saw the victory of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) at the Battle of Gallipoli as the birth of the nation, this being their first major military performance. On the other hand, the Australian intervention in the Kokoda Road campaign (in WWII) is considered by many to be self-defense action.
Postwar prosperity
With World War II over, as a country located in Oceania according to educationvv, the Australian government instigated a massive program to attract European immigration. Having narrowly prevented the Japanese invasion and suffered attacks on Australian soil for the first time, it was believed that the country must ‘populate or perish’. Immigration attracted traditional emigrants from the United Kingdom alongside, for the first time, large numbers of southern and eastern Europeans. The growing Australian economy did not degrade unlike the European one, which had been devastated by war. In Australia, immigrant newcomers found employment in government-assisted programs. Two million people came to the burgeoning southern nation between 1948 and 1975.
The Liberal Party, founded in 1944, dominated the situation in the immediate postwar period, with its president and founder, Robert Menzies, defeating in 1949 the then president of the Labor Party, Ben Chifley, who had already served as Prime Minister from 1945 to 1949.. Menzies oversaw postwar expansion; he would become the national leader to spend the longest in that position. Manufacturing, which had previously played a minor role in an economy dominated by primary production, expanded enormously.
Since the 1970s and the abolition of White Australia policy, immigration from Asia and other parts of the world has also been encouraged; As a result, national demographics, culture, and image have been radically transformed. Since 1951, Australia has been a military ally of the United States under the auspices of the ANZUS Treaty. The last constitutional ties between the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth were removed in 1986 by the Australia Act, ending any British role in the Australian states and abolishing judicial appeals to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. Australia remains, however, a constitutional monarchy with Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom as its queen and head of state. Australia’s ties to its British past are progressively fading. The constitutional crisis of 1974, which toppled Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, shocked the country.