Australia’s Aboriginal people were thought to have arrived here by boat from South East Asia during the last Ice Age, at least 50,000 years ago. At the time of European discovery and settlement, up to one million Aboriginal people lived across the continent as hunters and gatherers. They were scattered in 300 clans and spoke 250 languages and 700 dialects. Each clan had a spiritual connection with a specific piece of land. However, they also traveled widely to trade, find water and seasonal produce and for ritual and totemic gatherings.
Despite the diversity of their homelands – from outback deserts and tropical rainforests to snow-capped mountains – all Aboriginal people share a belief in the timeless, magical realm of the Dreamtime. According to Aboriginal myth, totemic spirit ancestors forged all aspects of life during the Dreamtime of the world’s creation. These spirit ancestors continue to connect natural phenomena, as well as past, present and future through every aspect of Aboriginal culture.
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• 1770: Britain arrives and brings its convicts.
• 1820’s: many soldiers, officers and emancipated convicts had turned land they received from the government into flourishing farms
• 1851: Gold rush brings wealth, migrants and rebellion
• 1900: Australia becomes a nation
• 1914: Australians go to war
• 1945: New Australians arrive to a post-war boom.
• 1972: Australian Labor Party under the idealistic leadership of lawyer Gough Whitlam was elected to power, ending the post-war domination of the Liberal and Country Party coalition
• 1986: The final phase in the achievement of complete legislative independence for Australia was the Australia Act in 1986.
• 2010 Julia Eileen Gillard,from Labour party become first popularly elected female Prime minister