Australia History - How much do you know?

[Shazzam]

I have been thinking about posting this thread for so long; but I kept forgetting to do it.

I thought we could turn it into a little bit of a project and learn some interesting things along the way.

The goal is not to repeat. In other words try to post something about Australian History that no one else has posted.
I thought I would start things; so here is my piece on Australian History:

Leiutenant James Cook (later Captain James Cook) was born on October 27, 1728 in the Yorkshire village of Marton. He was an officer in the Royal British Navy. James Cook founded Botany Bay in Australia as a penal colony. Lt. Cook sailed aboard the Endeavour for his voyage to Australia (which means Unknown Southern Land). He was accompanied by two companions that were botanists; Daniel Solander and Joseph Banks. The Endeavour landed at Botany Bay in April 1770. As they stepped onto land, its first name was going to be Stingray Bay because of the animals in the water. Later the name was changed to Botany Bay because of all the plants the botanists gathered there.

In 1788 Britain sent prisoners to the Botany Bay penal colony.

The First Fleet carried eleven ships full of prisoners. The growing number of white prisoners caused problems for the native aborigines.

In 1848 the governor of New South Wales did not accept anymore prisoners from Britain, but Western Australia, kept accepting until 1868.

The soil was not very suitable for farming therefore, the prisoners struggled for food. Prisoners were put to service and they also raised sheep.

I went right back to the beginning of white settlers so you guys have heaps of room to play with this topic.

Just to help along the way I have a link that you could have a look at and maybe find some more interesting things to post.

http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215290/history.htm

[Danyet]

Here is a nice story for you all. The First Fleets' first night on Australian soil. But you better put the kids to bed first.

When the ships arrived in the Sydney area there were a couple of hundred men prisoners and a lesser figure of women prisoners. I'm not sure of the numbers. There were also the soldiers and ships crew.

Well as you can imagine they had to clear and scrape away the rough bush before they could pitch their tents. Soldiers and prisoners worked alike. No one was all that happy about being in Australia because the land was so harsh but they were greatly relieved to be off the ships. They had barely got their camp set up by sunset when a great storm hit them with a torrential downpour. There were buckets of rain and thunder and lightening and also quite a gust of wind.

The wind grew steady and began to blow the tents down in the pouring rain while soldiers and prisoners, men and women struggles to keep warm and dry. But they prevailed not. They could not keep pace with the elements and eventually, in the dark of night succummed to the wind and rain and the crash of thunder.

AND to their own lusts.
Soon some prisoners gave up trying to keep their tents up and began having sex with each other in the rain. Then some soldiers joined in. And then the rest of those present joined in the orgy. All the men and women convicts and the sailors and the soldiers and even officers gave up and screwed all night.

The next morning the whole camp was in a mess. The Lt Gov, said that everyone should be ashamed of themselves and they went on with starting their new colony.

This is a true story that can be verified ( Of course they don't usually teach this in school) They just tell you that the "First Fleet arrived in 1788"

Betcha didn't know that!!

[Shazzam]

Here is a nice story for you all. The First Fleets' first night on Australian soil. But you better put the kids to bed first.


AND to their own lusts.
Soon some prisoners gave up trying to keep their tents up and began having sex with each other in the rain. Then some soldiers joined in. And then the rest of those present joined in the orgy. All the men and women convicts and the sailors and the soldiers and even officers gave up and screwed all night.

The next morning the whole camp was in a mess. The Lt Gov, said that everyone should be ashamed of themselves and they went on with starting their new colony.

This is a true story that can be verified ( Of course they don't usually teach this in school) They just tell you that the "First Fleet arrived in 1788"

Betcha didn't know that!!

Yes the tale of Mary Bryant. Well known here! Bet we did know it. They were convicts, not just petty convicts as some of them were but they sent murderers and rapists.

Now Danyet here is your challenge; try and find something positive in Australian History to report; that challenges my general knowledge. That would impress me.

[Danyet]

[

Now Danyet here is your challenge; try and find something positive in Australian History to report; that challenges my general knowledge. That would impress me.

??? I thought that was "positive" !!

OK, I'll try, but it might take me some time, as the notion is alien to me.

[Shazzam]

[

Now Danyet here is your challenge; try and find something positive in Australian History to report; that challenges my general knowledge. That would impress me.

??? I thought that was "positive" !!

OK, I'll try, but it might take me some time, as the notion is alien to me.

I know that you are up to the challenge Danyet. I have great confidence in you.

[Danyet]

OK here is some positive Aussie history......except for the ending of course.

Ben Hall (one of my favourite)- Bushranger

Wrongly accused and devastated by circumstances, Ben Hall took up the gun and cried 'Stand and Deliver' on the highways around the goldfields.

In 1862, Ben Hall was arrested as a suspected accomplice in a holdup near Forbes and spent a month in gaol before charges against him were dropped. During his month of detention his life was turned upside down. His wife ran off with a former policeman; his home was vandalised and burned, and the cattle on his previously successful property had either strayed or been stolen.
Devastated and disillusioned by these events when he returned to his small spread, and caring little for his future or welfare, Hall joined the gang of notorious bushranger Frank Gardiner, who roamed the nearby Weddin Mountains, Hall took part in the infamous Eugowra Rocks robbery, with the Gardiner gang and shared in the $14,000 spoils it provided. When Gardiner and most of the gang members separated, he returned to the Weddin Mountains and assumed leadership of the remaining bushrangers.
In the following 3 years Hall surpassed his predecessors with the number and audacity of his raids, which included mail robberies and race-horse thefts. Public officials, including police, were captured and often humiliated. Homesteads,and whole towns were raided. Once, in a 3 day celebration at Robinson's Hotel in Canowindra, there was considerable drinking, feasting and merry-making, åwith even the local constable coerced into the merriment. The 5 gang members then insisted on paying the hotelier for the spree as a display of their honesty and respect for the common man,
When 3 police officers from Carcoar chased them after a mail-coach robbery, the pursuers were captured, divested of their uniforms (for use by the Hall Gang in later raids) and tied to trees. The Officer in Charge of the Lachlan District was subsequently lectured on the folly of Police excesses while being robbed and, when Inspector Sir Frederick Pottinger gave chase, the gang relieved him of his horse.
The prestige of the New South Wales Police was not only undermined by the bushrangers, but the press took to lampooning their efforts to maintain law and order. After the killing of a police sergeant during a robbery, the situation became serious to the New South Wales government and Ben Hall, Charlie Gilbert and Johnny Dunn were called on to surrender or be 'outlawed'
The trio were the first in Australia's history to be the recipients of 'outlaw' status, an extreme measure, rarely invoked, which meant they could be shot dead by anyone in the community. Hall's reaction was to promise 'They'll never hang Ben Hall'.
A week later he was dead, betrayed by a 'friend' who offered him shelter but was tempted by the $2,000 reward which was on offer. Hall fell gunned down by a dozen police bullets in the ensuing fight and, as he lay dying, pleaded with black-tracker Billy Dargin. 'Shoot me dead Billy...Don't let them take me alive'. he pleaded.A further fusilade from police made his plea unnecessary, he was 27 years of age.
Ben Hall was buried by police at Forbes, with no cross or headstone to mark his final resting place. However, the grave was in a public cemetery and locals tended it. A neat picket fence appeared and it was frequently adorned with flowers. In the 1920's a headstone was erected and the grave upgraded. Further work has been carried out in recent years to ensure Ben Hall's brief but spectacular role in Australia's history.

http://www.frenchviss.qld.edu.au/projectbenhall.htm

[Shazzam]

Danyet you never cease to amaze me! Well done.

I hadn't heard that story. Ned Kelly was my obvious chose of bush ranger. You have now inspired me to make sure that his story is mentioned in this thread. I read the whole story that you wrote; it seems that bushrangers were treated like Robin Hood figures during this age; they were respected by the common people. I would assume from this that the constabulary must have even been corrupt in those days. But maybe more extreme.

Well done Danyet I have to surpass 5 stars. You have gained a 8 star rating....INSPIRATION STUFF!!!

[Danyet]

I did not know of Mary Bryant so I decided to investigate further. Here is what found.

Mary Bryant "the Girl from Botany Bay,"

The sea route produced one epic escape in the early I790’s whose notoriety blossomed in London, reached back to Botany Bay and gave heart to would-be absconders for years to come. It was led by a woman, Mary Bryant (b. I765), "the Girl from Botany Bay," as the English press later dubbed her.

With her two small children, her husband William Bryant, and seven other convicts, she managed to sail a stolen boat all the way north from Sydney to Timor, a distance of 3,250 miles in just under ten weeks.

Read the full story here.
http://www.eurekatimes.net/Penal%20Colo ... bryant.htm

[Danyet]

I have found a little more information relating to my article on The First Fleets Arrival in Australia and the subsequent orgy. Also, aparrantly there were 783 convicts in all according to most sources and arriving on three ships. It turns out that the orgy took place on the first night that the women convicts were brought ashore which was two weeks later than the men.

"
Finding an excellent harbor at Port Jackson, as it was then termed-now known as Sydney-first, supplies were unloaded from the ships, and the male convicts, most of whom, like the female convicts, were between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, spent two weeks constructing crude huts for themselves and (in a separate location) for the female convicts, who remained on board the ships until this was done. And the supplies were well guarded as they contained a year's supply of rum, which medical opinion in those days regarded as essential to life.

Two weeks later the disembarkation of the female convicts was begun, at a considerable distance from the male ones, of course. Just as the majority of them were off the ships a storm blew up, of a violence astonishing to the British. And as it began, and the authorities were blinded by the rain and wind, there was a mutual rush of the sex-starved convicts toward each other, and a mass sex orgy began as the men and the women copulated together. And pretty soon, they broke into the supplies, drank up most of the rum, and this caused the orgy to go on for three days and nights. And it only stopped then due to the complete mutual sexual exhaustion of both the men and the women.

And on the third night they slept it off. On the fourth day the authorities regained control, and, appalled by what had happened, decided on the only course of action possible, seeing that a number of the women were undoubtedly pregnant by then. The unmarried male and female convicts were 'forcibly married.' Now this is a contradiction in terms; marriage must be voluntary. What they did was give each single male fifteen minutes to make up his mind which woman he wanted to marry; if he failed to name someone, he would be shot. One can imagine the choice was not a hard one; after all, after a three-day sex orgy, they had certainly been introduced to one another!

Upon making his choice, the woman named was asked if she wished to marry the man, and there were very few refusals. If the woman did refuse, the man was given another fifteen minutes to choose a mate, and upon consenting, the couple was married by the ship's captain. And history records that at least two of the marriages made in this fashion lasted fifty years!

The British authorities made every effort to cover up what had really taken place at the founding of Australia, and only by the private writing of the convicts which survived have the facts come to light in recent years. "

[Shazzam]

Search for the Nations Capital.

1902 - 1908

The search for a site for the national capital took place. Forty districts were proposed, 23 of these inspected and the cnoice narrowed to seven. Albury, Bombala, Lake George, Lyndhurst, Tumut, Dalgety and Yass-Canberra were all examined with regard to adequate water supply, climate and landform suitable for the building of a 'garden city'. Finally in 1908 the Yass-Canberra area was selected as it best filled these requirements, and 2368m2 were set aside as the Australian Capital Territory, with access to the sea at Jervis Bay.

Charles Scrivener, Surveyor-General selected the most suitable area of the teritory for construction of the city. He chose the broad flood-plain of the Molonglo River, 55 metres above sea-level with additional land to the north and south including two lines of hills on the north side rising 300 metres above the plain and low undulations adding attractive variety top the southern area.

1911

An international completition for a city plan was launched, attracting 137 entries. First prize was awarded to American landscape architect Walter Burley Griffin from Chicago whose plan established a city for a population of 25,000 which he expected in time would grow to 75,000.

Lake Burley Griffin runs through Canberra.

The population in Canberra today (2005) is approximately 325,000.