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South Australia was founded as a free-colony, without convicts. The Province of South Australia was established in 1836 as a privately financed settlement based on the theory of "systematic colonisation" developed by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Convict labour was banned in the hope of making the colony more attractive to "respectable" families and ...
Animated map of the territorial evolution of Australia. The first colonies of the British Empire on the continent of Australia were the penal colony of New South Wales, founded in 1788, and the Swan River Colony (later renamed Western Australia), founded in 1829.
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.
Commonwealth of Australia established as federation. 1 January 1901: Independence from United Kingdom. 16 September 1975: Papua New Guinea becomes formally independent of Australia 11 December 1931: Statute of Westminster: 3 March 1986: Australia Act 1986 Cook Islands: State in free association with New Zealand with a local prime minister 4 ...
Australia's life expectancy of 83 years (81 years for males and 85 years for females) [391] is the fifth-highest in the world. It has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world, [ 392 ] while cigarette smoking is the largest preventable cause of death and disease, responsible for 7.8% of the total mortality and disease.
The Tasmanian Society, founded in 1837, was Australia's leading scientific society at the time. The Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land for Botany, Horticulture and the Advancement of Science was established in 1844. The University of Sydney, founded in 1850, included chairs in mathematics, chemistry and physics. [196]
The history of Australia from 1901 to 1945 begins with the federation of the six colonies to create the Commonwealth of Australia. The young nation joined Britain in the First World War, suffered through the Great Depression in Australia as part of the global Great Depression and again joined Britain in the Second World War against Nazi Germany in 1939.
Between 1870 and 1890 average income per person in Australia was more than 50 per cent higher than that of the United States, giving Australia one of the highest living standards in the world. [31] The size of the government sector almost doubled from 10 per cent of national expenditure in 1850 to 19 per cent in 1890.