A bunch of European explorers crossed through Australian seas during the great navigation age.  Around the year 1520, even Portuguese vessels passed through Australia but didn’t pay much attention to it, but in year 1770 a British navigator called Captain James Cook announced that the territory belonged to Great Britain. A few years later, the island had become a penal colony. The prisoners’ transportation occurred between years 1788 and 1868, making Australia the final destiny for 160.000 convicted men and women.

The moving of free colonists to Australia started after prisoners’ transportation period. Women were minority and lived in constant threat of sexual exploration, once it was used to have one woman for each five men. Convicted prisoners were used to be brutally attacked and the aborigines, ancestral habitants of that region, suffered even more due to racial discrimination.

Near 1820, many soldiers, officers and former prisoners received Australian lands given by the British government, and turned them into great farms.  During this period, the territory was divided in states and its colonization spread to the whole country. The discovery of gold in the Australian Southeast region brought lots of people and lots of money, turning Melbourne and Sidney into modern and charming cities near 1880.

In 1901, Australia transformed its 6 states into a nation and created legislations. The new laws, at that time, cancelled immigration, especially from Europe. That decision lasted some years, but had an end after the World War 2. Nowadays, Australia is a multicultural country and is the home of people who came from over 200 countries.

In 1914, the Australian male population was of 3 million. Around 400.000 of them were sent to World War I and the estimative is that 15% of them were killed and thousands injured. At World War II, the Australian Forces made a significant contribution to assist in the Allies victory in Europe, Asia and Pacific.

After the war, thousands of immigrants from all over Europe and Medium East moved to Australia, where they found lots of job opportunities in the new industry. The economy had an increase in the 50’s due the big construction projects, such as the hydroelectric stations’ construction. The international interest for the country increased, leading to an extraordinary growth in the metals, wool and wheat exportation.

Nowadays Australia is a country in a highly developed and currently is one of the top 5 countries in HDI (Human Development Index) worldwide, along with Norway and Iceland.

There is an estimative that the aborigines arrived in Australia through Southeast Asia during the last Glacial Age, at least 50 thousand years ago. Around 1 million of them were used to live in the whole territory and was divided in 300 clans, until Europeans arrival. The Aborigine population suffered a significant decrease during colonization. Today they represent only 1% of Australian population, around 200 thousand people.

Dreamtime: In spite of different tribes and aborigines languages, all of them shared same beliefs from a timeless aspect of magic kingdom called Dreamtime. This myth refers to the “time before time” or “the time of the creation of all things”, as if the past was being referred as the creation of everything. The Aborigines used these terms to justify the elements of life. However, these concepts also appear as a real sense of present and future. The anthropologist e historian W.H. Stanner describes the Dreamtime as “The Everywhen”.