Quote:
Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b
Is it analogous to Independence Day in the US?
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Yes, same sort of thing. January 26 1788 was the date that Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the First Fleet of eleven convict ships from Great Britain and the first governor of New South Wales, arrived at Sydney Cove.
Australia wasn't one nation until 1901. Prior to that it had been a collection of British colonies with limited self rule. The individual colonies became the states of Australia after federation. The first colonies, at Sydney Cove and Van Diemen's Land (now the island-state of Tasmania) were settled using convict labour but my state of Western Australia and our neighbour South Australia were founded by free settlers a few decades later. The Western Australian and South Australian colonies were established by Britain mainly to prevent the French from taking the western half of the continent for themselves.