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The rising star's world beating cricketing exploits were to provide Australians with much needed joy through the emerging Great Depression in Australia and post-World War II recovery. Between 1929 and 1931 the racehorse Phar Lap dominated Australia's racing industry, at one stage winning fourteen races in a row. [337]
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, [17] is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. [18] Australia has a total area of 7,688,287 km 2 (2,968,464 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania.
Australia separated from Gondwana 99 Ma, and initially remained warm and humid with rainforest vegetation. Inland Australia had systems of rivers and lakes with abundant wildlife. Fossil birds, platypus, frogs and snakes are present from this period. From 30 Ma there was a period of global cooling, and from 15 Ma the Antarctic ice sheet formed.
The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south-east Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the last glacial period. [1] [2] Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world.
The government encouraged more people to come to Australia and many more assisted agreements were made with countries. In the late 1950s, more immigrants began to be accepted from the Middle East . In 1958, under the Migration Act 1958 , the dictation test was removed and a new universal visa scheme or entry permits introduced.
The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the colonisation of Australia in 1788, which marks the start of consistent written documentation of Australia. This period has been variously estimated, with most evidence suggesting that it goes back between 50,000 and 65,000 years.
The League of Nations mandated northeast New Guinea to Australia after World War I, as well as Nauru, which was placed under joint Australian-British-New Zealand jurisdiction. These mandates (and, later, United Nations trust territories ) became the independent nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea in the mid-20th century.
Australia is the only First World country on the Australia-New Guinea continent, although the economy of Australia is by far the largest and most dominant economy in the region and one of the largest in the world. Australia's per-capita GDP is higher than that of the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and France in terms of purchasing power ...