Related posts:

1. Australia
2. USA

The first recorded awareness of Australia came in the early 1600’s by Dutch exploring ships. Although ships did make ground in Australia, no settlements or long term contact was initially started.  In the 1700’s the Dutch had claimed the land as their own and were calling it “New Holland”, however the conditions were not thought to be conducive for colonies and no new area was set up.  In 1770 a British Navy Commander named James Cook landed on the eastern shore of the continent and began his explorations to the north, eventually taking the area in the name of the British Empire and calling it New South Wales.

Although it seems like a rough and rugged ground for families to colonize it worked as a perfect solution to one of the British Empire’s many problems.  The colonies Britain had set up in American were supposed to eventually become penal colonies and quite a few British debt prisoners were sent the Americas to work off their penalty. With the loss of American in the Revolutionary War, Britain lost its main place to send criminals. This land seemed perfect for a penal colony and thus in 1787 they began to send ships full of prisoners to colonize Australia.

The first colony was completed on January 26, 1788 which is now considered Australia’s founding day.  The next few decades would be spent by Britain exploring and colonizing the land first to the south and then to the north of the country.  Two colonies in the Southern area were established as “free colonies” which meant you did not have to be part of the prison population to go there.  These colonies became a haven for workers and trade merchants. In 1840 New Zealand was proclaimed a free colony as well.

Britain retained a very tight rein on its colonies, sending a continuous flow of prisoners to do the work and guards to keep the prisoners in line. After a prison sentence was finished there was no transportation back to England so most convicts became citizens of the Australian colonies.  Working as masons, laborers and miners these men discovered there was gold in the land. The states of Australia were functioning with their own governments but were not recognized by the crown, and kept the secret of the gold for about 3 years to gain wealth hoping to get rights. When it didn’t work word of the gold was allowed to spread causing an Australian gold rush that would last for almost 10 years. In that time immigrants from England, America, China and Ireland all came to find their fortune on Australian soil.  Instead of earning England’s respect, the opposite happened and Britain clamped down on the miners charging them high fees for equipment, lodging and licensing.

In 1854 a rebellion by the miners in Ballarat, protesting the high taxation and poor conditions, called the Eureka Stockade erupted drawing attention to the plight of the Australian people. In response to this Britain sent more soldiers and troops solidifying anger against the crown and calls for Australian states to find their rightful voice in Parliament. After a stand off a proliferation of soldiers ensued making a battle inevitable and in the process the military massacred the helpless group of miners with terrible carnage.  This massacre was the pivotal event for change in history and after a court of inquiry held to the wrong doing of the army, new laws for miners, a standard fee instead of expensive licensing and the right to vote in parliament were gained in time. In 1901 Australia was officially made a commonwealth of the British Empire. It took almost 30 years for the government to form, a capital to be named and a constitution to be created.  The Statute of Westminster in 1931 separated Australia from Britain’s constitution to give them the right to create their own legal terms and become full dominions. Australia resisted in signing the statute until World War II.

Australia was involved as an allied support in both World Wars sending troops and resources wherever battle was being done.  The Gold rush had brought a fast prosperity to the land but the surface gold ran out quickly and soon the gold mines were also producing much less than could support the hundreds of miners who were trying to live off the land’s riches. An economic depression gripped the country and they were ill at ease to totally separate from Britain.  However, Britain’s early defeats in the war and loss to the Japanese in 1942 caused the voters of Australia to sign the Statute of Westminster and turn to the United States of America as an ally and country to act in a protective way.

After the war, the economy began to rise because of the employability of so many soldiers and the war machine that raised the economy. However it became clear that Australia was too small in population to sustain the large continent financially for very long. The Australians sought to increase immigration by any means necessary and ended up creating a diverse multicultural environment to continue to produce economic and social prosperity.

A blighted mark on the history of Australia is its treatment of the Aboriginal and indigenous cultures. Aboriginal people were persecuted and sometimes killed for their unwillingness to assimilate into British or Australian culture.  A program designed to take the children of aboriginal people and raise them the “proper way” failed miserably when the children were used as servants and slaves and many ran back to their own tribes or families as soon as possible.  In the 1960’s Britain made some reparations to the aboriginal people and allowed them the right to vote and be a voice of their own.

Australia began as a wild frontier and over time and conquest became a shadow of the England and eventually a country of respect and a dominion of the British Empire.

Related posts:

1. USA
2. Europe

America
The United States of America has several beginnings. Native Americans and people indigenous to both continents of the Americas had been on the land for thousands of years before explorers discovered the vast continent. Because of its large geographic size, four different groups of explorers were all settling on the North American continent all at the same time. The explorations of Christopher Columbus set forth a round of Spanish explorers who founded St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. The Spanish colonists began to settle in the southern part of the country. At the same time, French fur traders had entered the land through Canada and set up New France near the site of Michigan’s Great Lakes. Spanish colonists working their way up from Mexico had begun settling the American Southwest, naming it El Paso Del Norte (“the pass of the north”). British settlers were that last of the early groups to arrive, beginning their Jamestown colony in Virginia in 1607.
The beginning of the Jamestown colony was rough, marked by starvation and war with Native Americans. But as settlers got used to the climate and farms they planted began producing good crops, tens of thousand puritans, a Christian sect persecuted in Britain, left the United Kingdom to set up a new life on America’s shores. They called their colony New England. In 1614, after seeing the success of the puritans, the Dutch began to start colonies in the upper part of the eastern coast calling it New Sweden, and New Amsterdam. Britain then began to war with the other colonies. In the French-Indian war, the British seized Canada and the outposts of the New France, and later in a war with the Dutch seized New Amsterdam and New Sweden, and renamed the area New York. After colonists spread into and accessed the rest of the Eastern seaboard 13 colonies were established and officially named The United States of America.
The colonies set up their local governments, but were still part of the sovereignty of Great Britain. The slave trade was practiced in all 13 colonies and that practice when added to longer survival rates created a population explosion in the early to mid 1700’s. Eventually the governments of the colonies became aware that although there was much freedom granted to their governments, there was no official seat or recognition of them in British Parliament and they were, in fact, subject to the policies of Britain without any say or recourse. In 1775 the colonies began meeting about separating from Britain and creating their own sovereign country. George Washington was selected to be the commander of this venture and Thomas Jefferson with input from others drafted the Declaration of Independence which was officially signed on July 4th, 1776. The ensuing war with Britain known as the Revolutionary War lasted until 1781 with the United States remaining victorious and independent from the United Kingdom who recognized America as a nation in 1783.
In 1788 the United States Constitution which set up a federal system of government was ratified by 9 of the 13 colonies which were all that was needed to pass that series of law into being. George Washington who had been integral in the victorious Revolutionary War, was named the first President of the United States of America. With the country’s system of governance and independence well established, the next phase of development was known as the Manifest Destiny, an ambitious series of wars and purchases that quadrupled the size of the United States of America. The native populations were driven west and lost their land ownership in the Indian Wars. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the U.S., negotiated a large purchase of land with France known as the Louisiana Purchase and America got all the land in the mid-west from Louisiana to North Dakota for 3 cents an acre. Military operations secured Florida from the Spanish and the Mexican-American war secured the rest of the southwest to the coast. The already existing Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845.
With the vast expansive land grab over, the United States of America turned to domestic issues as part of its overall evolution. The first issue to garner power and test the resolve of the new nation was slavery. Although all the original colonies had been slave states, a few northern and new territories did not allow slavery. This began to create a rift as slaves tried to flee their bonds by going to other states. The Underground Railroad was one such enterprise where slaves who could get to a free state were free. Trade tariffs also become a problem with the agricultural South suffering at the hands of the industrial North. In 1860 Southern States seceded from the United States to form the Confederate States of America, setting off the American Civil War. The war polarized the country economically and politically. The South was victorious at first but as the tide of the war turned against them they suffered defeat and destruction of a lot of their property. The Civil War ended in 1865 with the surrender of the South.
Following the Civil War and period of reconstruction, America began a massive industrial age with factories creating economic prosperity and jobs. Immigrants from countries all over the world rushed to be part of the American economic boom bringing with them their families, cultural ideas and a strong labor force. This boom lasted until 1929 when the stock market crashed turning millionaires into paupers and shutting down factories creating economic hardship throughout the country. Known as the Great Depression, it was a time of hardship and mass poverty. Social reforms swept through the government to provide some kind of food and care for the American people. The Great Depression ended in 1945 when America entered World War II. America had been neutral in the first World War offered some help to Britain and France, but when Japan bombed the American naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii the U.S.A. entered the war as a full ally. The war meant factories churning out weapons, and a large proliferation of the Army which caused the economic upswing the country needed to break out of its financial slump. The war ended in 1945 when the United States used two nuclear weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
When the war ended, Americans came home from the army with money in their pockets and job skills to add to the country’s industrial complex. It was a second time of prosperity defined by the “American Dream” characterized by a family owning a home, having 2 children and a car. As Americans individually pursued their dreams America become locked in a tense war of words with the Soviet Union. This “cold war” would last for almost 30 years fueled by spying and suspicion on both sides. It would end with the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980’s. America plunged into another war when it delved into the Vietnam Conflict. Unlike World War II, this conflict had no clear objectives or cogent strategy. It lasted from 1959 until 1971 and over 58,000 American soldiers were killed during that time. Disputes about the Vietnam War lead to division among political parties and distrust for the government. After Vietnam, America tried to change its focus back to a time of prosperity with wavering results some economic property was achieved in the 1980’s and 1990’s but continuing issues involving governmental corruption and world politics kept it at bay. On September 11, 2001 America entered its latest battle, the war on terror, after terrorists hijacked 4 airplanes and flew 2 of them in to the World Trade Center in New York City, 1 into the Pentagon in Washington, DC and 1 which crashed in a field on its way to Washington. Over 2,900 people were killed in the attacks, leading the United States to enter in a series of actions aimed at ending terrorism world-wide. As part of those actions the United States invaded the nation of Iraq in 2003 and continues to be a military presence there.
Two hundred years after the founding of Jamestown, America is still a nation trying to grow and define itself as a superpower on the world stage.

Related posts:

1. Australia
2. Europe