The discovery of Australia

The discovery of Australia

Hello everybody! At school we speak about Australia now, so I decided to write about its discovery. To be honest, at first, I wanted to write about complete history of this interesting country, but it is so extensive that I decided to restrict my post for the discovery. I hope that you´ll learn some new information and maybe be more interested in Australia, than before.

As you probably know, Australia was in 18^th century founded by Europeans, but althrough the former Europeans make up majority of today´s Australia population, they are not original inhabitants of this beautiful continent. Let´s have look, how it all began!

Approximately before 60 000 years before was in the world much colder than today and the oceans were shallow. So, the first Australians, today called Aborigines came here from Asia partly by walk and by short navigation ways.

Probable ways of Aborigines.

These people were living there calmly for about 5.000 years. The manner of their life was not much changing. They were naked, lived in small groups – tribes. For hunting animals, they were using a legendary weapon – boomerang, but they also were picking up some berries, plants, nuts and crustaceans. However, what´s interesting, Tasmanians were avoiding fish meat. Even after Europeans arrival.

The first ship, that heralded the beginning of the end for calm life which was there, sailed around south seashore of Africa in 1486. It was in the great era overseas discoveries. Few years ago, is Christopher Columbus discovering an American continent and the time for Australia is also slowly coming…

The first Europeans, who probably saw Australia, were Portuguese in 16^th century. Their ships were crossing the Indian ocean, so they could see western seashores of Australia. Why didn´t they land? Seafarers probably didn´t see anything attractive from observational baskets. So, these people had a possibility for colonising Australia, but they didn´t see any sense for that.

At the beginning of the 17^th century was north and west seashore discovered by Dutch’s sailors. They called it New Holland, but that was all. No colonisation, no another exploration. Few years later Abel Tasman (also Dutch) discovered south seashore of New Zeeland and island under Australia, which is now called after him – Tasmania.

In 1768 sailed captain James Cook with the ship Endeavour out from Britain. He had to find the ´south land´, and take it over for The Great Britain. He also had to watch crossing a planet Venus across the Sun, on 3^rd June 1769 from an island Tahiti. It was an uncommon phenomenon and they wanted to use it for a computation, how far is Earth from the Sun.

Captain James Cook

 From Tahiti sailed Cook and his men to New Zeeland (which was already discovered by Tasman) and during reconnaissance unknown north-west seas discovered an east Australia seashore. When he was landing (in location today´s border between Victoria and New South Wales), he saw some smoke, so it was clear that the land is inhabited.

He landed on exactly to Botany bay and was very satisfied. The reasons are understandable. There was a safe seaport, a convenient climate, fertile soil, good possibilities for fishing and natives didn´t look dangerous. Or at any rate, he thought so.

Although the discovery looked fantastic, the reality was not so pleasant as it seemed. Cook was amazed by green meadows and consequently though that there is enough feed for livestock in every year season. He also believed that he has arrived just for season of dry, but the opposite was true. He couldn´t know, that the meadows he saw are going to wilt soon and the creeks are going dry. However, Union Jack has already waved upon the ´new continent´ and Australia became a new British colony. On 18^th January 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip has formally assumed responsibility for the colony.

For next 60 years, Australia will be a penal colony for British convicts. Majority of them won´t never came back to UK, but they will write a modern history of Australia. Unfortunately, in its consequent, it means the end of Aborigines culture. Definitely - Brits are responsible for genocide of Aborigines.

In my opinion, the discovery of Australia was very important step for modern history of the world. It shows us a great progress of new country, which stands out of civilised world affected by industrial revolution, but on the other hand cruelty of stronger society.

Vocabulary

Herald – předznamenat

overseas discoveries – zámořské objevy

seashores – (přímořské) pobřeží

uncommon phenomenon – vzácný jev/úkaz

computation – výpočet/kalkulace

seaport – přístav

fertile soil – úrodná půda

natives – domorodci

at any rate – na každý pád

livestock – hospodářská zvířata

wave – vlát

Sources

BLAINEY, Geoffrey. Dějiny Austrálie. Praha: Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 1999. Dějiny států. ISBN 80-7106-334-7.

MACINTYRE, Stuart. Dějiny Austrálie. Praha: NLN, Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, 2013. Dějiny států. ISBN 978-80-7422-222-1.