Australia

Roderick Cameron explanis how, during the 50 years that followed Governor Phillip’s landing at Botany Bay in 1788, convicts and free settlers turned the inhospitable country of New South Wales into a flourishing colony.

The Antipodean reformer died on May 16th, 1862.

The Australian pioneer Robert O'Hara Burke died of starvation on June 30th, 1861.

Mark Juddery introduces The Story of the Kelly Gang, possibly the first-ever feature film, now largely lost, that was made a hundred years ago in Australia about the notorious outlaw with the unusual body-armour. Hugely popular when it was first released in 1906, it spawned a genre of bushranger movies and epitomized the significance of the Kelly legend in Australian cultural identity.

Anthony Fyson reads a letter from his great-grandfather, who as a young man was caught up in the Eureka Stockade, where gold-miners in Ballarat, Victoria, famously clashed with state troops, 150 years ago this month.

Matthew Stewart discusses Peter Weir's 1981 cinematic tour de force, and what it tells us about the ANZAC myth.

Peter Monteath recalls what happened when two explorers, whose nations were battling for supremacy, met on the other side of the world.

Australian prospectors struck gold on February 12th, 1851.

Who discovered Australia? Most people think of the First Fleet that went to Botany Bay 1788, but our ideas may require rethinking, following recent research on DNA analysis, and epidemiological studies of a rare disease. 

Janis Wilton records the stories of 19th-century Chinese immigrants and their descendants, and explores their relationship with ‘White Australia’.

Daryl Best on use and abuse in Australia's environmental history.