Australia

Australia has an unusual origin story.

For at least 65,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples lived across the continent, developing diverse cultures, languages and deep connections with the land.

Then the British arrived.

Captain James Cook claimed the east coast for Britain in 1770. In 1788, the First Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove carrying convicts, soldiers and officials. Britain had a prison problem. Australia was, conveniently, a very long way away.

The colonies grew, but British expansion came at an enormous cost to Indigenous peoples. Disease, violence and dispossession reshaped Aboriginal life across the continent.

Then came gold.

The gold rushes of the 1850s brought thousands of migrants from around the world. Towns expanded, fortunes were made, and Australia’s population exploded. Not everyone found gold, of course. Otherwise, history would have been considerably shorter.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Australia’s six British colonies were increasingly interested in joining forces. On 1 January 1901, they federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia.

The new nation remained closely tied to Britain and fought alongside it in both World Wars. But the twentieth century gradually brought a different Australia.

After the Second World War, millions of migrants arrived, first largely from Europe and later from Asia and elsewhere. Australia became more multicultural, more urban and increasingly independent in its outlook.

At the same time, the country began confronting the treatment of its First Peoples, including the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children now known as the Stolen Generations. The 1967 referendum marked an important turning point in the legal and political recognition of Indigenous Australians.

Today, Australia is a modern, multicultural country built on an extraordinarily old Indigenous history, British colonisation, immigration and natural wealth.

Its story is not simply one of convicts becoming citizens.

It is the story of an ancient continent becoming a new nation — with plenty of arguments along the way.