aboriginal australians are believed to have first arrived on the Australian continent by sea from maritime Southeast Asia between 40,000 years and 70,000 years ago the traditions they establish here are among the longest surviving in human history the first known landing in Australia by Europeans was by the Dutch navigator Villa Hansen in 6006 other dutch navigators explored the western and southern coast in the 17th century and maimed the continent new holland so original like the New Spain New England and New France so everything was nearing that period in 1770 Lieutenant James Cook explored the east coast of Australia for Great Britain a first fleet of British ships arrived at Botany Bay in January 1788 were they established a panel colony in the century that followed the British established other colonies on the continent and explorers ventured into its interior the rushes for gold and agriculture brought labour force and growth for the economy so this first colony was named New South Wales in 1788 afterwards including New Zealand Van Diemen's land known as Tasmania today was settled in 1803 and established in 1825 as the colony Western Australia was established in 1827 in 1842 South Australia became a crown colony in 1841 New Zealand is separated from New South Wales in 1851 Victoria separated and in 1859 Queensland is separated by the late 1880s a majority of people living in Australian colonies were native-born also over 90 percent were British and Irish heritage so more and more people wanted to have their own government their more freedom not like an independent state but as a union of colonies the Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of Queensland New South Wales Victoria Tasmania soda Australia and Western Australia tonight and foreign Commonwealth of Australia New Zealand and Fiji were part of this process but they decided not to join in 1901 the colonies officially became the states of the Commonwealth of Australia this land having the status of Dominion of Britain more than 460,000 Australian men volunteered to fight during the First World War which represented the total of 10 percent of the entire population over 60,000 Australians had died during this conflict and 160 were wounded Australia achieved independent sovereign nation status after World War one a report was made resulting from the 1926 Imperial conference of British Empire which defined the Dominions of the British Empire in the following way their autonomous communities within the British Empire equally status in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs to united by common allegiance to the crown and freely associated with members of the British Commonwealth of Nations in the 1930s Australia was very affected by the Great Depression due to his dependence on exports this nation was on the Allied side in the Second World War being involved in North Africa Crete and Syria but even on their mainland region being bombed by Japan and helping the United States in the conquest of the Pacific Islands after the world Australia started to develop more and more especially after 1970s their GDP per capita reaching astonishing numbers today's being a very developed country and continent in the same time with a huge surface and just 24 million people
