History of Australia 

    The Aboriginal people dream on a timeless continent It was thought that the Aboriginal people of Australia had come here by boat, coming from Southeast Asia during the last Ice Age, at least 50,000 years. At the time of European discovery and settlement, up to one million Aboriginal people lived across the continent as hunters and gatherers. They were scattered in 300 clans and spoke 250 languages ​​and 700 dialects. Each clan had a spiritual connection with a specific piece of land, but also traveled widely to trade, find water and seasonal fruits and vegetables and make ritual and totemic gatherings. Despite the diversity of their homelands - from outback deserts to rainforests to snow-capped mountains - all Aboriginal people shared the belief in the magical sphere and timeless Dreamtime ("Time of Dreams"). According to Aboriginal myth, totemic spirit ancestors created all aspects of life during the Dreamtime creation of the world. These spirit ancestors continue to connect natural phenomena, as well as the past, present and future through every aspect of Aboriginal culture. The British arrive and bring their doomed Some European explorers sailed the coast of Australia, then known as New Netherland in the 17th century. However, it was not until 1770 that Captain James Cook charted the west coast and claimed for the British. The new outpost was used as a penal colony and on January 26, 1788, the first fleet of 11 ships carried 1,500 people - half of them convicts - arrived at the port of Sydney. To extinction penal transportation in 1868, 160,000 men and women came to Australia as convicts.

   While free settlers began arriving from the early 1790s, life was difficult for prisoners. There were five times more men than women, and women living under the threat of sexual exploitation. Men averse to breaking the law were brutally beaten or could be hanged for crimes as small as stealing. The Aboriginal people displaced by the new settlement suffered even more. The expropriation of land and the illness and death resulting from introduced diseases harmed the lifestyles and traditional practices. The settlers take the continent Until the 1820s, many soldiers, officers and emancipated convicts had turned the land they received from the government in prosperous farms. News about the cheap land and abundant labor in Australia brought more and more boatloads of migrants adventurers from Britain. Settlers or "squatters" started to penetrate more and more Aboriginal territories - often armed - in search of pasture and water for their animals. In 1825, a group of soldiers and convicts colonized the territory of the people Yuggera, near Brisbane today. Perth was settled by the English in 1829 and in 1835 a colonizer sailed to Port Phillip Bay and chose the location of Melbourne.

   At the same time, a British company particularly proud of having no link with the convicts, colonized Adelaide, South Australia The gold rush brings wealth, immigrants and rebellion Gold was discovered in New South Wales (New South Wales) and in central Victoria in 1851, attracting thousands of young men and some women adventurers, too young, of colonies. They were joined by many boats full of explorers from China and a chaotic carnival artists, innkeepers, vendors moonshine, prostitutes and charlatans from all over the world. In Victoria, the British governor tries to impose order - monthly license and cavalry heavy-handed - in response to the bloody struggle of anti-authoritarianism defense barrier of Eureka in 1854. Despite the violence in the mines, the wealth brought gold and wool brought huge investments to Melbourne and Sydney, and in the 1880s, they were already modern towns and full of style. Australia becomes a nation The six states of Australia became a nation under a single constitution on 1 January 1901. One of the first actions of the new national parliament was passing legislation, later known as the White Australia Policy, which restricted migration mostly to people of European origin. This policy was gradually dismantled after the Second World War and today Australia is home to people from more than 200 countries. Australians go to war The First World War had a devastating effect in Australia. There were fewer than 3 million men in 1914, but almost 400,000 of them volunteered to fight in the war. It is estimated that 60,000 have died and tens of thousands have been wounded.

   As a reaction to grief, the 1920s were a whirlwind of new cars and cinemas, jazz and American movies and enthusiasm for the British Empire. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, the social and economic divisions widened and many Australian financial institutions failed. The sport was a distraction and national sports heroes, like racehorse Phar Lap and cricketer Donald Bradman, reached a status close to that of myths. During the Second World War, Australian forces made a significant contribution to the Allied victory in Europe, Asia and the Pacific. The generation that fought in the war and survived, submerged it with a sense of pride of Australian capabilities. New Australians arrive in a time of great postwar growth After the war ended in 1945, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from across Europe and the Middle East arrived in Australia, many finding jobs in the growing manufacturing sector. Many of the women who took jobs in factories while the men were at war continued to work during peacetime. Australia's economy grew throughout the 1950s, with major construction projects in the nation, such as hydropower scheme in the Snowy Mountains, mountains near Canberra. The international demand for major exports Australians - metals, wool, beef and wheat - grown, suburban and Australia also prospered. The amount of own homes increased dramatically from a mere 40% in 1947 to over 70% in the 1960s.

   Australia calms Like many other countries, Australia was dragged by revolutionary atmosphere of the 1960s. The new ethnic diversity of Australia's growing independence from Britain and the popular resistance to the Vietnam War, all contributed to an atmosphere of political change, economic and social. In 1967, Australians voted strikingly "yes" in a national referendum to allow the federal government to legislate on behalf of the Australian Aborigines and include them in future censuses. The result led to a strong reformist campaign by both Aboriginal and by the white Australians. In 1972, the Australian Labor Party, under the leadership of Gough Whitlam's idealistic lawyer, was elected to power, which ended the domination of the postwar coalition between the Liberal and National parties. During the next three years, his new government exterminated conscription, abolished the paid teaching university and introduced universal health care.

   He abandoned the White Australia Policy, adopted multiculturalism and introduced divorce without guilt and equal pay for women. However, in 1975 inflation and a scandal prompted the Governor General to leave the government. In the subsequent general election, the Labour Party suffered a major defeat and the Liberal-National Coalition ruled until 1983. Since the 1970s Between 1983 and 1996, the Hawke-Keating Labor governments introduced various economic reforms, such as deregulation of the banking system and the floating of the Australian dollar. In 1996, a coalition government led by John Howard won the general election and was reelected in 1998, 2001 and 2004. The government of the Liberal-National coalition enacted several reforms, including tax changes and industrial relations systems. In 2007, the Labor Party led by Kevin Rudd, was elected to the reform agenda of the industrial relations system in Australia, climate change policies and the health and education sectors.