The history of Australia began when the man reached the Australian mainland from the north more than 42,000 years ago. However, its recorded history did not begin until the explorers Dutch sighted it in the seventeenth century. However, they implied that the southern land was uninhabitable and therefore not settled, leaving the way open for subsequent British expeditions. The interpretation of Australian history is a subject of debate even today, particularly in regard to the treatment of indigenous Australians by European settlers.


As regards Australia, the term prehistory the period extending from the immigration of the original inhabitants to the first European sighting confirmed in 1606, which may be included as part of its early history. It is considered that Australian prehistory few thousand years is more extensive than in other parts of the world because there are no letters of human events on the continent prior to European contact.
The exact date of the earliest human settlement in Australia is still a matter of debate. However, it is believed that the southern land has been inhabited by humans since between 42,000 and 48,000 years, at the time there was a period of massive environmental change believed to have been the result of human actions. The first Australians were the ancestors of Australian Aborigines today, arrived via land bridges and short length maritime steps from Southeast Asia. Most of these people were hunter-gatherers with a complex oral tradition and spiritual values based on reverence for the land and the belief of sleep time. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, inhabited from that time the Torres Strait Islands and parts of far north Queensland, have cultural practices different from those of other groups indigenous Australians.

Contacting asia

For at least the past century, Calcutta (a city in Indonesia) has traded with the natives of the north coast, particularly the Yolngu of Arnhem Land.
In 1603, Father Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit Portuguese who spent a long time in China, made a map of the known world at that time. In the space where they would place Australia, noted: No one has been in this southern land, therefore we know nothing about it. He also wrote in Chinese characters Tierra del Fuego and Land Loros, thus suggested that the Chinese knew or perhaps even visited Australia.

European Exploration

Early writings about the discovery of the Australian continent by European explorers dating from the early seventeenth century. The first European sighting of the continent was indisputable fact in 1606 by the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon, who sailed the Gulf of Carpentaria on his boat Duyfken, sighting and landing on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula. Some writers have argued that browsers Portuguese may have discovered Australia in the sixteenth century, journalist Peter Trickett recently wrote in the book “Beyond Capricorn” that Portuguese Cristóvão de Mendonça arrived at Botany Bay in 1522, ie 250 years before than the English. In this book is a fragment of an accurate map of part of the Australian coast, written in Portuguese, leaving no doubt that the Portuguese were the first to reach Australia. Other European voyagers (predominantly Dutch, but French and English) would presumably come after the newly discovered land. By the early seventeenth century, western and northern coasts of what they called “New Holland”had been charted and navigated in its entirety by the Dutch. However, there are no attempts were made to the establishment.
In 1770, the issue of the Endeavour under the command of Lieutenant of the Royal Navy James Cook navigated and charted the east coast of Australia, landing on the continent for the first time in Botany Bay on April 29 that year. Cook then turned north and, before leaving, he landed on Possession Island in the Torres Strait, on August 22 , 1770. He formally claimed the eastern coast of Australia for the Kingdom of Great Britain and named New South Wales. Since Cook’s discoveries made possible the first European settlement on the continent, is often popularly conceived as the discoverer of the southern land, but the real discovery occurred more than 160 years before Cook’s voyage.
On his return to England, reports favorably on this land made for the issue generated interest on Australia to be considered as a potential solution to the problem of penal overcrowding in Britain, which had been aggravated by the loss of thirteen American colonies, who had been the destination for the transportation of convicts. Therefore, the March 13 of 1787, the eleven ships of the First Fleet left Portsmouth, England, to Botany Bay.
One reason to establish an English colony in New South Wales in 1788 was to make an attempt to use the skins of the Northwest Coast of America to open trade with Japan. During the decade 1785-1795, the British traders encouraged by the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, and supported by his Government, made a constant attempt to develop this trade. These hopes and efforts failed before the opposition of Spain determined that it must defend its previous claims to territory and navigation in the North Pacific and also a Japan that had stubbornly national isolation.