Immigration history of Australia
After the loss of the United States, Britain experienced overcrowding of its prisons and sought to ease the problems by transportation of its prisoners. In 1787 the First Fleet of 11 ships and about 1350 people under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip sailed for Australia. On 26 January 1788 a landing was made at Sydney Cove. The new colony was formally proclaimed as the Colony of New South Wales on 7 February. Other transport fleets bringing further convicts as well as freemen to the colony followed. As a result of agitation by the free settlers in Sydney, transportation of convicts to Sydney ended in 1840. It continued to the colonies of Van Diemen's Land (where settlement began in 1803) and Moreton Bay (founded 1824, and later renamed Queensland) for some years longer. The small settlement of Perth, founded in 1829 on the Swan River in Western Australia by free settlers, failed to prosper and asked for convicts. In contrast, South Australia, with its capital Adelaide founded in 1836, and Victoria, with its capital Melbourne founded in 1839, was settled only by free settlers. South Australia not only received British migrants, but also a significant influx of Prussian farmers and tradesmen, initially seeking freedom from religious persecution. By the end of the penal transportation in 1868, approximately 165,000 people had entered Australia as convicts.
History of broadcasting in Australia
The "Great White Fleet" of the US visited Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Albany) in August and September 1908. The depth of fond sentiment towards the United States displayed at the time of the announcement that the Great White Fleet would be visiting can be gauged by the following: The Fleet that is Coming to Sydney; An official despatch from Washington states that Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans, in charge of the major portion of the battle fleet of the United States, will leave San Francisco on July 6. The fleet will visit Hawaii, Samoa, Melbourne, and Sydney. It will then proceed to the Philippines for the autumn gunnery practice, and return to the Atlantic, via the Suez Canal. The Right Hon. James Bryce, British Ambassador at Washington, supported the Commonwealth's invitation to the fleet to visit Australia. On Saturday evening, at the Centenary Hall, Sydney, when the Prime Minister concluded his address on national defence, he intimated that he had just received a cable message to the effect that the American fleet would visit Melbourne and Sydney. In an instant the hall rang with tumultuous cheering. Mr. Deakin, waiting with uplifted hand, for a lull in the storm, presently shouted: 'The least we can do is to give three cheers for the United States.' The great audience rose en masse, and cheer after cheer was given to the waving of hats and canes and handkerchiefs. The Prime Minister: I venture to say that a welcome such as that fleet has never known, outside its own country at all events, will be given it in Australia. (Great cheering.)