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The history of Australia from 1788 to 1850 covers the early British colonial period of Australia's history. This started with the arrival in 1788 of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson on the lands of the Eora , and the establishment of the penal colony of New South Wales as part of the British Empire .
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 by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and continues to the present day multicultural democracy.
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.
Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales: South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859. [31] The Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia. [32] South Australia was founded as a "free province"—it was never a penal colony. [33]
Australia fought alongside Britain and its Allies in World War I, notably at Gallipoli (against the Ottoman Empire) and the Western Front. It fought with Britain and its allies again in World War II, protecting Britain's Pacific colonies from Imperial Japan. Until 1949, Britain and Australia shared a common nationality code.
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.
The Colony of New South Wales was a colony of the British Empire from 1788 to 1901, when it became a State of the Commonwealth of Australia.At its greatest extent, the colony of New South Wales included the present-day Australian states of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia, the Northern Territory as well as New Zealand.
In April 1848, Charles Fitzgerald, Governor of Western Australia, petitioned Britain to send convicts to his state because of labour shortages. Britain rejected sending fixed-term convicts, but offered to send first offenders in the final years of their terms. Most convicts in Western Australia spent very little time in prison.