History of Australia

The history of Australia is the history of the land and peoples which comprise the Commonwealth of Australia. The modern nation came into existence on 1 January 1901 as a federation of former British colonies. The human history of Australia, however, commences with the arrival of the first ancestors of Aboriginal Australians from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and continues to the present day multicultural democracy.

Aboriginal Australians settled throughout continental Australia and many nearby islands. The artistic, musical and spiritual traditions they established are among the longest surviving in human history. The ancestors of today's ethnically and culturally distinct Torres Strait Islanders arrived from what is now Papua New Guinea around 2,500 years ago, and settled the islands on the northern tip of the Australian landmass.

Dutch navigators explored the western and southern coasts in the 17th century and named the continent New Holland. Macassan trepangers visited Australia's northern coasts from around 1720, and possibly earlier. In 1770, Lieutenant James Cook charted the east coast of Australia and claimed it for Great Britain. He returned to London with accounts favouring colonisation at Botany Bay (now in Sydney). The First Fleet of British ships arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788 to establish a penal colony. In the century that followed, the British established other colonies on the continent, and European explorers ventured into its interior. This period saw a decline in the Aboriginal population and the disruption of their cultures due to introduced diseases, violent conflict and dispossession of their traditional lands. From 1871, the Torres Strait Islanders welcomed Christian Missionaries, and the islands were later annexed by Queensland, choosing to remain a part of Australia when Papua New Guinea gained independence from Australia a century later.

Gold rushes and agricultural industries brought prosperity. Transportation of British convicts to Australia was phased out from 1840 to 1868. Autonomous parliamentary democracies began to be established throughout the six British colonies from the mid-19th century. The colonies voted by referendum to unite in a federation in 1901, and modern Australia came into being. Australia fought as part of British Empire and later Commonwealth in the two world wars and was to become a long-standing ally of the United States through the Cold War to the present. Trade with Asia increased and a post-war immigration program received more than 7 million migrants from every continent. Supported by immigration of people from almost every country in the world since the end of World War II, the population increased to more than 25.5 million by 2021, with 30 per cent of the population born overseas.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians moved into what is now the Australian continent about 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the last glacial period, arriving by land bridges and short sea crossings from what is now Southeast Asia.

The Madjedbebe rock shelter in Arnhem Land, in the north of the continent, is perhaps the oldest site of human occupation in Australia. From the north, the population spread into a range of very different environments. Devil's Lair in the extreme south-west of the continent was occupied around 47,000 years ago and Tasmania by 39,000 years ago. The oldest human remains found are at Lake Mungo in New South Wales, which have been dated to around 41,000 years ago. The site suggests one of the world's oldest known cremations, indicating early evidence for religious ritual among humans.

The spread of the population also altered the environment. From 46,000 years ago, fire-stick farming was used in many parts of Australia to clear vegetation, make travel easier, and create open grasslands rich in animal and vegetable food sources.

The Aboriginal population faced significant changes in the climate and environment. About 30,000 years ago, sea levels began to fall, temperatures in the south-east of the continent dropped by as much as 9 °C (16 °F), and the interior of Australia became more arid. About 20,000 years ago, New Guinea and Tasmania were connected to the Australian continent, which was more than a quarter larger than today.