1606: Willem Janszoon makes the first European discovery of Australia. He was born in 1570 and died in 1630. He was Dutch and his occupation was a navigator and colonial governor.
1642: A Dutch captain sailed far south and discovered Tasmania. He called it Van Diemen’s Land and thought it was joined to the main land.
1688: William Dampier arrives on the West Coast of Australia. He was a sea captain and scientific observer. He was the first Englishman to explore or map part of New Holland (Australia) and Papua New Guinea.
1725: Captain James Cook arrives on the West Coast of Australia. He was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer. Who was rising to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy.
26.1.1788: The first fleet came to Botany Bay Australia. It took 8 months and 1 week to get from England to Australia. That is why on the 26th of January each year we celebrate Australia day.
3.6.1790: The second fleet arrives in Australia. On some ships there were settlers, convicts and supplies to colony at Sydney Cove in Port Jackson, Australia.
1813: Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth discovered the Blue Mountains. It’s called the Blue Mountains because before they discovered it all they could see of it was a blue wall.
1824: John Oxley arrived in Morton Bay, the Aborigines showed him the Brisbane River. He was an explorer and surveyor of Australia in the early period of English colonisation.
1851: The gold rush begins near Bathurst NSW. When the gold rush began people came to Australia to find gold. Some people found gold and became rich others weren’t o s lucky and caught a disease called Malaria.
1868: The last convicts are transported to Australia. Before 1868 large numbers of convicts were transported to the various Australian colonies by the British government. In 1868 370,000 immigrants arrived in Australia.
1872: Uluru is sighted by the Europeans in Alice Springs, Northern Territory. Another name for Uluru is Ayers Rock it’s a large sandstone formation in the Northern part of the Northern Territory.
1890: The federal council of Australia is formed. The federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self governing colonies of the six states and two territories
1901: King Edward the VII approved the design of the Australian national flag. Before the flag was approved there was a debate over whether we should have the design of the Union flag. The debate had come to a head at a number of occasions.
1901: Lord Hopetoun proclaimed the Commonwealth of Australia. Lord Hopetoun the 7th Earl was born in 1860 and died in 1908. He became a lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria in 1885 and in 1887-1889 represented the Queen as lord high commissioner to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland.
1.1.1901: First governor-general Rt Hon., John Adrian Louise Hope the 7th Earl of Hopetoun who served from the 1st of January 1901 to the 9th of January 1903.
1901: Sir Edmund Barton was the first Prime minister of Australian politics, he served from 1901-1903. He contested in elections for 20 years in N.S.W. and 2 federal conventions in 1891 and 1897.
1911: The first Australian territory is proclaimed.
