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Australia.It is quite difficult to sum up the history of an entire country using only 6 images, but I’ll try my best regardless.Attached as follows, are six pictures which I believe to be representative of the most crucial points in my nation’s old, but also young history. Each come with a description of the image itself, in addition to several paragraphs on their context, covering a set of events within the range of the relevant dates for each.With that said, I now present to you the entire history of Australia, in only six pictures:“The Dreamtime”: Pre-colonial Australia (50,000 BC - 1788 AD)Around 40–70,000 years ago, the ancestors of what we now call the Indigenous peoples of Australia arrived in the continent from Maritime Southeast Asia.As time passed, the Aboriginals quickly innovated a hunter-gatherer society, and learned to work with stone. And while they were never able to progress to more complex levels of civilization as seen in Eurasia (ie. kingdoms and empires), academics have noted that given the limited resources available to them, the Aboriginals maintained surprisingly complex economies and societies for their time.There has been evidence for instance, to suggest that some Aboriginal tribes practiced cremation. This is supported by a set of human remains - the earliest known in the world - which was discovered recently at Lake Mungo (1969) in New South Wales. The implication of this find was straightforward: the evidence for religious ritual amongst humans, even when isolated from the rest of the world. Given all the aforementioned, some academics have even gone so far as to argue that the Aboriginal peoples, were the rightful claimants to the title of “world’s oldest continuous culture” - predictably a highly controversial claim.Indigenous Australians on many occasions were also known to have made contact with several non-Aboriginal peoples, foremost amongst whom were the many trepang fisherman, who frequented Australia’s northern coast from the Makassar region of Sulawesi. They traded in particular with the Yolngu Aboriginals, who resided in the Northern Territory.In addition to this, there have also been rumours of a Chinese expedition to Australia around the times of the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), although this is a claim yet to be wholly corroborated. According to genetic testing done at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (2012) though, some Indian explorers may have also settled in Australia roughly 4,000 years ago, assimilating into the Indigenous population around 2217 BC.It was the arrival of the Europeans however, which acted to finally change the millennia long status quo in Australia. Based on the concept of “Terra Australis Incognita”, a hypothetical southern landmass which balanced out the continents of the Northern Hemisphere, sailors from the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) foremost amongst whom was Willem Janszoon, managed to chart the entirety of Australia’s northern and western coastlines in 1606 and 1616, giving their recent discovery the title of “New Holland” in 1644.Prompted by subsequent Dutch and Spanish trips to New Holland, the British eventually also arrived in Australia via the privateer William Dampier, who landed on the continent’s northwestern coast in 1688, then again in 1699. But a full, large scale British effort was not to come until 1770 however, when Captain James Cook of the Royal Navy sailed along New Holland’s eastern coast. Cook mapped the continent’s southeast in particular, and named it “New South Wales”, subsequently claiming the coast for the glory of Great Britain.In this way, the path was now open for an inevitable British colonisation of Australia.Image 1: An Aboriginal rock painting from Kimberly, Western Australia.Australian Indigenous art is considered to be the oldest unbroken tradition of fine arts in the world. Similarly, some of the oldest rock paintings in the world also have their origin in Australia. The most commonly cited examples here to that extent, involve several paintings in Western and South Australia at Pilbara region and Olary district respectively, which have been estimated to be around 40,000 years old at least.“Rule, Britannia!”: The European Colonisation of Australia (1788–1901)In 1783, the United States of America emerged victorious in its eight year long war for independence against Great Britain.This was bad news, as the British had previously offloaded their convicts in the “New World”. Robbed of their precious Thirteen Colonies, the British looked elsewhere and quickly decided on Australia instead. And so come 1787, the “First Fleet”, comprised of 1,500 men, women and children, set sail for New South Wales across a total of 11 ships, where they finally arrived the following year between 18–20th of January.Despite coming into contact with the Aboriginal people on arrival, the First Fleet refused to recognise Indigenous rights to the land, and instead proclaimed New Holland as “Terra Nullius” - no man’s land, thereby seizing it for Great Britain instead. Under British law (which was now in full effect), the roughly 750,000 Aboriginals were not viewed as being equal to the Europeans, and so by this logic did not have rights, and therefore could not have a legitimate claim to the land. Several days after on January 26th, 1788, the Union Jack was hoisted over Sydney Cove, thereby marking the start of a new chapter in the continent’s history.Subsequent trips to Australia from Britain were carried out in light of the First Fleet’s successes, and this eventually led to the colonisation of Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania) in 1803 as well. The following year, an English navigator called Matthew Flinders, proposed that New Holland be reserved only for the continent’s western half, and instead suggested, “Terra Australis” - the Southern Land - as a replacement, which was where the name for Australia originated from.Colonisation of Australia was then furthered, when come 1813 a group of three men, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth crossed the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, prompting European settlement of the interior to occur. Similarly in 1824, explorer Hamilton Hume and Royal Navy Captain William Hovell, led an expedition to find new grazing land further south, and in so doing discovered the 1,472 km long Darling River. Van Dieman’s Land then became independent of New South Wales in 1825, whilst by the following year, the British had claimed the entirety of the continent for their own.Additional colonies were eventually carved out of New South Wales, including South Australia in 1836 which was founded as the first “free colony” set up for non-convicts. Victoria followed in 1851, and Queensland in 1859. During these troublesome times, efforts at British colonisation were met with fierce resistance from the Indigenous, who often responded violently to Western aggression. Hundreds of Aboriginals and Europeans died from subsequent frontier skirmishes, but thousands more of the former perished due to the introduction of infectious Western diseases against which, they had little natural defence.To make matters worse, a government approved effort at Indigenous assimilation, made possible by the “Aboriginal Protection Act 1869”, then begun a decades long process, which at its peak years later eventually saw to the removal of thousands of Aboriginal children from their families, where they were then given over to the charge of the British authorities instead. Beginning in 1905, this was an infamy which would eventually become known in history as the “Stolen Generations”, and its mission was simple: to breed out the entirety of the Aboriginal peoples and forcibly integrate them into the Anglo-Saxon genepool.From the 1850s to the early 1900s, a gold rush began in Australia, prompted by the en masse discovery of gold in several colonies (1823–50). In response, thousands from all over the world journeyed to Australia from the likes of Europe, the United States and even the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) to seek their fortunes. This was important for two reasons: the first was that it allowed the British colonies of Australia to triple in population, from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871, the second, was that it made the continent truly multicultural for the first time in its history.Inevitably, the colonies began to grow in size and importance leading to rivalry between the settlements. Recognising this, the British administration responded by eventually granting each colony some degree of autonomy, which included the right to self-governance in the political spheres, so long as this did not involve matters pertaining to foreign affairs, defence and international shipping. Ultimately however, this was not enough and soon the colonies found themselves wanting more than just mere autonomy.Image 2: “The Founding of Australia by Captain Arthur Phillip RN Sydney Cove January 26th 1788” - an oil painting by British artist Algernon Tarnage (1939).The nation’s most important holiday, “Australia Day”, is commemorated on the 26th of January each year. It is fairly similar to America’s “Columbus Day” in both role, and therefore controversy. As such, in recent times there have been calls from both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous alike, to shift the national holiday to a different date, in order to avoid what they assert, is in reality the commemoration of European imperialism (“Invasion Day”).“Federation”: Dawn of Nationhood (1901–14)By the times of the late 1880s, Australia had changed dramatically when compared to its earliest days under the First Fleet.The vast majority of colonists - 90% - despite being of either English or Irish ancestry, were native born for instance. Furthermore, a distinct form of Australian art and literature had also emerged by the end of the 19th century, giving rise to legends such as artists Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts, in addition to writers Henry Lawson, Miles Franklin and Banjo Paterson, the latter of who wrote the much beloved lyrics to the famous Australian patriotic folk-song, “Waltzing Matilda” (1895).Similarly, recent improvements in infrastructure and communication, had also acted to assist in the dismantling of years long intercolonial rivalries - Perth came to be linked by telegraph to Melbourne and Sydney in 1877, whilst each colony begun to construct railways at unprecedented rates. It was therefore on this basis, in addition to calls from Great Britain for the establishment of an intercolonial Australian army, that Henry Parks, Premier of New South Wales first argued in favour of the need for a national, and native run government (1889). Parks succeeded, and by the following year, representatives from the six colonies were already calling for colonial unity.Having consented to a Bill subsequently proposed in 1899, the colonies sent delegates to Britain the following year, in order to convey their new found desire for unity. Received well in the House of Commons, the proposed federation of the colonies was passed on 5 July 1900 in the form of the “Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act”, and was four days thereafter signed into law by Queen Victoria. Thus, after a decade of planning, consultation and voting, the Commonwealth of Australia as we know it, came into being on 1 January 1901 under a Federal administration, where each state - formerly colony - was now governed via two legal systems, as was the case in the United States.Two months after “Federation Day”, Australia’s first national elections were held ultimately resulting in a victory for the Protectionist Party headed by Sir Edmund Barton - the Commonwealth’s first prime minister - who promised to create a high court, a uniform railway gauge between the eastern capitals, a system of age old pensions, in addition to an efficient federal public service. Most importantly however, the Minister also swore to uphold the concept of a “White Australia”, which would ideally be free from the menace of both ethnic Asians as well as Pacific Islanders alike.When Australia’s first Parliament came to be held on May 9th, 1901 therefore, one of the first laws to be passed was the “Immigration Restriction Act 1901”, which is better known today by its informal name: the “White Australia Policy”. Immigrants from the Qing Empire in particular under these discriminating laws, were severely restricted from entering the Commonwealth based on the rationale, of a variety of reasons ranging from economic protection to downright hostility. Exclusion was achieved by way of a dictation test, which per Australian law was required to be held in any Western language, thus naturally prohibiting the Chinese and other non-Europeans from successfully applying.Prompted by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance’s signing in 1902, the Royal Navy eventually withdrew the vast majority of its forces from the Pacific by 1907. In Australia, this was viewed with horror by the Commonwealth, who as a country which was both sparsely populated and virtually located in the middle of nowhere, felt abandoned by Great Britain. The grandeur of the United States Navy, which visited the continent the following year in 1908 however via the “Great White Fleet”, acted to convince the Australian government on the merits of having a strong, modern and capable navy (or really, just a military in general).The Defence Act of 1909 reaffirmed the importance of national defence, whilst in February the following year, the concept of conscription was proposed. In 1911, the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was recognised by King George V, and was quickly supplemented by a series of ships leading with the destroyer Yarra, and headed by battlecruiser Australia come 1913. And here on the eve of the infamous “War to End All Wars” (1914–18), it is estimated that the Commonwealth held in its possession no less than 200,000 men at arms ready to die not just for Australia, but also for the great British Empire (1593–1997).Image 3: “The Big Picture” - a painting by Australian artist Tom Roberts (1903).The subject of the painting was based on the opening of the first Parliament of Australia, which took place on the 9th of May, 1901.It measures 3.05 by 5.09 metres (roughly 10 by 17 feet) in terms of size, and whilst technically part of the Royal Collection of the British Royal Family, has since 1957 been on loan to the Parliament of Australia, where it also presently resides in Canberra, as a treasured Australian relic. The piece has previously been described as “undoubtedly the principal work of art recording Australia's Parliamentary History.”“With Fire and Spirit”: A Young Nation at War (1914–45)On August 14th 1914, Australia followed Britain’s exemplar and declared war on the German Empire (1871–1918), having been obligated to do so per its status then as an Imperial Dominion.Subsequently over the next four years, a total of 416,000 men (estimated as being up to half the eligible male population) volunteered for the war effort, keen to rally to the British cause. This was important in hindsight, as the First World War marked a decisive moment in the history of the Commonwealth, serving as the country’s de facto coming-of-age ritual. First on the itinerary to that extent was the infamous Gallipoli Campaign (1915–16), which pitted France, Britain and all its colonies, against the dying Ottoman Empire (1299–1922). Here, Australia would have an early chance to prove itself, as a nation recently conceived.Come April 25th, 1915, the coalition landed at Gallipoli Peninsular where they were immediately fired upon by the Ottoman army, who had been expecting them. Due to a series of rocky heights (ie. an uphill battle) in addition to the curse of poor planning, allied forces were forced to make comparatively small advances relative to the amount of casualties that they were incurring. Ultimately by the end of the campaign roughly 8 months later, Australia had lost 8,709 men out of an initial 28,150. Britain meanwhile suffered 34,072 dead.Despite its failure, the Gallipoli Campaign is often upheld to this day as the moment in which Australia first truly, became a nation post its “baptism by fire”. Having fought in Turkey, the majority of the Australian Imperial Forces (AIC) were then moved to France to support the war effort on the Western Front, whilst a minority stayed behind in the Middle-East, where they notably contributed to an allied victory at the Battle of Beersheba (October 1917) two years after. By December 1914, the Australia New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) had been formed to support the war effort in Egypt.For the Australians who fought under British command in France however, this was a more unfortunate affair. Take the Battle of the Somme (November 1916) for instance, where 5,533 Australian soldiers were either killed or wounded in under 24 hours. This was however a number which paled in contrast to the Commonwealth’s final casualty count by the end of the First World War, which was tallied at around 60,000 dead and 152,000 wounded (for reference, in 1918 Australia had a population of 5 million). Then with peace now at hand, the Anzacs returned home.A few notable events occurred during the interwar years. Politics took off, with both the National and Communist parties founded in 1920. Industrial disputes characterized the rest of the decade in Australia, while recent developments from the United States including American consumerism, entertainment, culture, and new technologies, quickly made their way south also, albeit with the exception of Prohibition. Immigration begun to pick up, with an additional 300,000 British citizens brought to Australia by various campaigns.The “Westminister Act 1931” was eventually passed by Great Britain, and acted to formally end most constitutional links between Australia and the United Kingdom (though this was not adopted by Australia until 1942). The Great Depression (1929–39) hit the Commonwealth hard however, leading to a peak unemployment level of 29% nationwide in 1932. Even so, defence spending was still a central focus of Australia during such times, as duly agreed upon by the various administrations of Hughes, Bruce, Scullin, Lyons, Page and Menzies from 1915–41.Then came the outbreak of the Second World War (1939–1945). As with before, a British declaration of war obligated Australia to follow suit, which they did against Nazi Germany (1933–45) on 3 September 1939. The crucial difference this time around however, was that Australia itself was now at risk. Formerly a British ally, the Japanese Empire (1868–1947) had set its sights on the vast southern continent, poised for the kill. It conducted no less than 100 airstrikes on Darwin and Northern Australia to that extent, and even managed to successfully send a number of mini-submarines to Sydney Harbour.Naturally, Australia was forced to fight in both Europe and in Asia alike. From 1940–41, the Commonwealth played prominent roles in the Mediterranean theatre, including but not limited to Operation Compass, the Siege of Tobruk, the Greek Campaign, the Syria-Lebanon Campaign, the Battle of Crete, and the Second Battle of Al-Alamein. Meanwhile back in Asia, Japan was attempting to isolate Australia from the rest of the world, by planning a seabourne invasion of Port Moresby.When the US Navy thwarted their plans at the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 1942), Japan went forward with a second attempt which was land based. This time, the Australian Army itself prevented the Japanese from fulfilling their ambitions, by way of the famous Kokoda Trail in the highlands of New Guinea - a feat which ultimately came to define Commonwealth involvement in World War Two. During the six years of WWII, 1 million men and women were involved in the war effort, out of a population of 7 million. By its end in 1945, the death toll had risen to 39,700 - 8,000 of which died in Japanese captivity alone.The World Wars were an early test for a nation as young and therefore fragile as Australia, but at last, it was over, and by its end the Commonwealth was still standing strong and defiant. With the past now behind them, Australia looked towards the future instead.Image 4: The Australian Army at Gallipolli during the First World War.In the foreground lies a wounded soldier, as hundreds of other “Diggers” move among the dead and wounded on the beach at Anzac Cove on the day of the landing. In addition to this are the soldiers with Red Cross armbands, who were responsible for tending to the wounded. To be noted are the boxes of equipment stacked among the men, as well as the discarded personal equipment which littered the beach.“Renovatio”: Australia - The Emerging Power (1945–1996)The Post-War era in Australia was defined by several important societal changes.The first being immigration. If World War II had taught Australia one thing, it was that 7 million people could not be expected to defend an entire continent by themselves. Australia to that extent, on the basis of “Populate or Perish”, begun to expand its immigration scheme to the rest of the world. British citizens were still overwhelmingly preferred above all others, but due to lacking quantities the Commonwealth was forced to take in large numbers of Southern and Central Europeans to Australia for the first time.This begun shortly after WWII, but took off in 1958 when a leaflet was published, proclaiming that many unskilled non-British migrants were desperately needed, on projects that would have been deemed “unacceptable” for a British or Australian citizen to take up. Despite such degradation, many Europeans were forced to depart from their respective countries regardless, as the continent had been left in ruins by WWII - a burden which had not extended to Australia by stark contrast.Immigration to Australia was further eased, when the Menzies Administration (1949–66) passed the “Migration Act 1958”, which prohibited the earlier arbitrariness of using any European language in dictation tests, which had up until then been used as a prerequisite for immigration. Instead, the tests were replaced with a new entry permit system, that assessed a potential migrant based on one’s skill and economic value.Further reforms in the 1960s effectively ended the discriminating White Australia policy, and come 1973 the Immigration Restriction Act was removed entirely. This was how it came to be then, that no less than 4.2 million migrants to Australia - amongst which only 40% were British or Irish in origin - came to the Commonwealth from 1945–85, from the likes of the Netherlands, Italy, New Zealand, Malta, Yugoslavia, Greece, Austria, Germany, and eventually Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam, Lebanon, Turkey and India.In part due to the waves of skilled migrants which inundated Australia, the Economy of the Commonwealth subsequently took off from the 1950s to the 1990s. Gains in both living standards and leisure time were made, with car ownership increasing from 130 owners in every 1,000 in 1949 to 271 owners in every 1,000 come 1961. By the early 1960s, Holden, an Australian car company had in its charge between 80,000 to 100,000 workers, of which at least 80% were migrant labourers. Similarly, Sheep numbers grew from 113 million in 1950 to 171 million in 1965. Wool production meanwhile increased from 518,000 to 819,000 tonnes in the same period.Urbanization rates expanded rapidly, and by 1966 only 14% of the Commonwealth lived in rural Australia, down from 31% in 1933. During the 1950s, Australia was blessed with the fortune of “full employment”, and this subsequently led to further gains in living standards in addition to dramatic increases in home ownership, which by the times of the following decade gave the Commonwealth the world’s most equitable distribution of income amongst any and all countries. A survey in the 1960s estimated that 94% of homes had a fridge, 50% a telephone, 55% a television, 60% a washing machine, and 73% a vacuum cleaner.The Post-War era was also a time for change in regards to foreign partners. Whilst Great Britain had traditionally been Australia’s closest economic and military partner, this soon changed when in 1951, the “Australia, New Zealand, and United States Security Treaty” (ANZUS) was signed, thus making each power a formal ally of the other two. Throughout the succeeding years, various Australian administrations would struggle over the issue of which power was more important to Australian interests: Britain or America?By the end of the Menzies Administration however, there came to be a general consensus that Australia would remain a firm supporter of both the British Monarchy in addition to the “Commonwealth of Nations”, whilst remaining a steadfast US ally. In terms of economics, Australia eventually also reached out to its former enemy Japan, and engaged the island nation in a series of trade deals, thus beginning a period of growth whereby Australian exports of coal, iron ore and mineral resources would steadily climb until Japan became Australia's largest trading partner.Trade with the UK by stark contrast, declined throughout the 1950s and 1960s, reflecting Great Britain’s now diminishing vitality to the Commonwealth of Australia.Similar to its new found ally the United States, another enemy eventually came to Commonwealth shores in the form of Marxism. The Government responded quickly to this “Red Terror” by attempting to ban the Communist Party, first by legislation in 1950 and later by referendum in 1951 but alas to no avail. Foreign intervention with the intention to halt the communist spread on the other hand, here the Commonwealth played a crucial role in. Urged on by America, Australia intervened in the Korean War (1950–53) and deployed 17,000 soldiers to the Korean Peninsular. By the war’s end, 339 Australians had been killed.As Australian vitality to the US increased in the context of anti-communism, additional military treaties were subsequently made including the “Southeast Asia Treaty Organization” (SEATO) which was signed a year after the Korean War’s end. Again prompted by the alliance with America, the Commonwealth then participated afterwards in the infamous Vietnam War (1955–75). Australian contribution to the War begun early in 1962, when advisers were already being sent to South Vietnam (1955–75), to help train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).Despite initial enthusiasm, by 1966 the War was already unpopular in the Commonwealth, drawing mass protests from the Australian public, the largest amongst which was the Melbourne march of 100,000 during the mid-1970s. After the US implementation of “Vietnamization”, Australian forces begun to withdraw, with the last Commonwealth troops pulling out from Vietnam by December 1972. Ultimately, the Australian presence in Vietnam lasted 10 years, saw 500 killed, and $218 million expended between 1962–72. Many Vietnamese refugees then fled to the Commonwealth after the War’s end, seeking sanctuary from the oppression of the new totalitarian communist regime.Domestically, both during and after the course of the Vietnam War, Australian society was making several gains here as well. Throughout the 1970s, Commonwealth cinema begun to take off and many films were subsequently made, centered around Australian themes. Australian history at this time was finally introduced into the school curriculum, whilst the famous Sydney Opera House was finished in 1973, and was followed in the same year by writer Patrick White, who became the first Australian to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.Similarly, rights pertaining to the Indigenous were expanded towards the latter half of the 20th century. This begun with the “Commonwealth Electoral Act” (1962), which proclaimed that henceforth all Indigenous peoples would have the right to enrol and vote at Federal elections. It was Queensland (1965) however, that first passed legislation providing Indigenous Australians with the right to vote at the State level.The 1967 Referendum then saw Australians vote by a 90% majority to change the constitution, in order to include all Indigenous in the national census and allow the Federal parliament to legislate on their behalf. And in 1992, the landmark case of “Mabo V Queensland (No 2)” was concluded by the High Court, which ruled that at the time of British arrival, Australia had not been “Terra Nullius” and so thus, traditional Aboriginal claims to the land were still valid despite both European assertions to the contrary, as well as the reception of British law.In 1984, following a plebiscite to choose the state song in 1977, “Advance Australia Fair” was adopted by the Commonwealth as the official national anthem of Australia, thereby replacing “God Save the Queen”, which was then relegated to the status of mere royal anthem instead. Some at the time interpreted this to mean the inevitable end of British influence in Australia. Ultimately, these sentiments proved to be correct and not two years later, the end was nigh for a future British role in the Commonwealth.With the passing of the “Australia Act 1986” therefore, all possibility for British influence in the Commonwealth however symbolic or de facto was removed entirely. Already seldom used, the option of judicial appeals to the Privy Council in London was also repealed. By the time that John Howard had been elected as Australia’s 25th Prime Minister in 1996 therefore, Australia was now a fully independent nation with considerable influence across the entire world - a far flung picture relative to its humble beginnings at the time of the First Fleet’s arrival in what was then New Holland.Image 5: A photograph of Sydney during the 1950s Australian economic boom.Here in particular, the focus is on a series of trams which were operating at the intersection of Barrack Street and George Street.To be noted also is the department store in the background. Named after its owner; a Welsh immigrant, “David Jones” was a private limited company (est. 1838) which specialised in selling upmarket fashion, and is to this day considered to be the oldest continuously operating department store in the world still trading under its original name.“Young and Free”: Modern Australia in the ‘Asian Century’ (1996–Present)Recent years have seen the coming and going of several notable turn of events.The introduction of a nationwide gun control scheme in Australia, being one such development. In response to the infamous Port Arthur Massacre (28–29 April 1996), in which a lone gunman murdered 35 innocent bystanders with the aid of two semi-automatic rifles (an L1A1 SLR and a Colt AR-15), the Howard Administration (1996–2007) resolved to take immediate action, in order to preserve the public safety of the Australian people. Therefore via the assistance of a “gun buy-back” scheme, from 1 October 1996 to 30 September 1997 the government reacquired and destroyed over an estimated 1 million firearms.Two years after in 1999, the Commonwealth held a nationwide referendum on the subject of whether Australia should discard the monarchy in favour of a republic. The result was that 55% of voters and a majority in every state rejected the proposal to become a republic, in which a president would be appointed based on a two-thirds vote in both Houses of the Australian Parliament. In the same year, prompted by the political instability of neighbouring East Timor, Australia led a United Nations taskforce into the country, and established both democracy and independence for the new republic, which held its first elections on August 30th, 2001.Following a successful bid to host the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia then rose to international acclaim, as 10,651 athletes from 199 countries made their way thousands of kilometres from all over the world to the continent’s largest city, in order to participate in 300 different events, in 28 unique sports. The Opening Ceremony was particularly noteworthy, as it featured a host of iconic Australian imagery and history. Also of similar importance was the Flame Ceremony, which paid special tribute to female athletes, including the freestyle swimmer Dawn Fraser as well as Indigenous Australian, Cathy Freeman, who was given the honour of lighting the Olympic flame.Then came the bombings of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. After the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) council concluded that the terrorist attacks on the United States were an attack on all allied nations that satisfied Article 5 of the NATO charter, John Howard responded by invoking Article IV of the ANZUS treaty which obligated the Commonwealth to come to the defence of their greatest ally. Following this, both Australia and New Zealand provided military units, including special forces and naval ships, in support of the US led “Operation Enduring Freedom” (2001–14) against Taliban insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.Immigration in general continued to expand under the Howard Administration, but was at the same time also restricted in several areas. A series of strict policies and laws were passed for instance, with the intention to discourage migrants arriving by boat without official authorisation. The “Pacific Solution” (implemented 2001–07) was foremost amongst these many policies, and based on its framework, all asylum seekers who travelled to Australia by sea were then either forced to turn back, or else be subject to the horrors of various detention facilities in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, whilst their refugee status was pending.During the Howard Administration, Australia’s ties to Asia continued to expand dramatically. Where previously Japan had been the continent’s largest trading partner, the newly ascendant People’s Republic of China had now entered into the picture, allowing the Commonwealth to experience an unprecedented period of economic growth and prosperity. It was a shift which ultimately proved to be evident at the primary and secondary educational levels, when various Eastern languages were then introduced into Australian schools. At the same time, Australia continued to maintain and strengthen ties with Great Britain and the United States, thus retaining old friends whilst gaining new ones.After the John Howard, came the election of Kevin Rudd who led Australia from 2007–10. Within the brief three years that he spent in office, Rudd attempted to reconcile White Australia with the Aboriginal peoples, by leading a historic parliamentary apology to the Stolen Generations for the abuses which they had been subjected to, during the early 20th century. In accordance with his center-left views, Rudd also attempted to combat climate change via the ratification of the “Kyoto Protocol”, in addition to the proposal of a controversial carbon tax which he later reneged on. Notably, Rudd also further expanded upon Australia’s ties with Asia, which would ultimately prove to be indispensable shortly after.Case in point, precipitated by chaos within the US subprime mortgage market, an international banking catastrophe resulted, eventually leading to the recent “Global Financial Crisis” (2007–08). All over the world, the Crisis decimated entire nations leading to negative economic growth for several countries in 2009, inclusive to Japan, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Russia.By stark contrast, Australia during the same period not only managed to emerged unaffected for the most part, but even witnessed a growth rate of 1.9% in real GDP. This was the fruits of a strong relationship with Asia as such, and in particular with China - the world’s newly emerging economic power, which in stark contrast to the Western world had grown at a rate of 9.2% year on year in terms of real GDP growth, thus allowing Chinese imports of Australian goods and commodities to take off, even during a financial crisis.In addition to this, the Rudd Administration also contributed to the negating of the Global Financial Crisis’ impact on the Commonwealth, by announcing a $42 billion stimulus package in February 2009, which consisted of: an infrastructure program worth $26 billion, tax breaks for small businesses worth $2.7 billion, and $12.7 billion for cash bonuses, including $950 for every Australian taxpayer who earned less than $80,000 during the 2007-8 financial year. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) also pursued an expansionary stance with regards to Australia’s Monetary Policy, when they decreased interest rates from 4.25% to 3.25% - the lowest it had been then since 1964 - in order to spur private consumption expenditure.In 2010, Rudd was ousted by his own party in favour of Julia Gilliard who then became Australia’s first female Prime Minister. Under the Gilliard Administration (2010–13), the Commonwealth recovered from the Global Financial Crisis much better than had been expected. Case in point, in the third quarter of 2011, the Australian Economy grew 2.5% as opposed to the 2.1% which had been predicted. In July 2012, the Government then implemented the highly controversial carbon tax, as first proposed under Kevin Rudd, with the intention to both penalise big polluters as well as meet climate change obligations.Then after months of inner party turmoil, Gilliard was deposed of and Rudd returned as Prime Minister in June 2013.After elections were held in September the same year however, a Coalition government again seized power under Tony Abbott, whose first act in October was to expand on predecessor John Howard’s stance towards illegal maritime immigration, by adopting a new policy which obligated the Australian Navy to redirect incoming refugees to Indonesia. Whilst the Abbott Administration (2013–15) was in power, Australia’s first religiously motivated act of violence came about, when Man Haron Monis took 18 hostages at a Lindt cafe in Sydney, which ended after a 17 hour standoff with the New South Wales police, resulting in the deaths of two hostages as well as that of the perpetrator.As with Gilliard who came before, inner party turmoil then ensued, leading to Abbot’s replacement in September 2015 with Malcolm Turnbull. Under the Turnbull Administration (2015–18), same sex marriage was made legal in December 2017, following a national survey that showed support from 61% of voters. The following year in August 2018 however, Turnbull was forced to step aside after an unsuccessful right-wing challenge to his leadership. He was replaced instead by Finance Minister Scott Morrison, who to this day remains the current Prime Minister of Australia (at least until the next election in 2 weeks time - probably).Image 6: The 2000 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony in Sydney (Sept. 15th)The Opening Ceremony took place at Stadium Australia, a facility designed specifically with the Sydney Olympics in mind. The area of the oval measured in at around 170m x 128m, while the Stadium as a whole costed $690 million to construct. In this particular photo, a crowd of 110,000 was in attendance on the day of the Opening Ceremony in September, 2000. This was however followed up by a record attendance of 115,000 at the Closing Ceremony on 1 October the same year.Political feuds aside, today the Commonwealth of Australia has continued to live up to its title of the “Lucky Country”. It maintains for instance the world’s 14th largest economy, as well as the world’s 10th highest GDP per Capita. Immigration to the Commonwealth also remains strong, with 26% of the population (which is currently 25,034,096 as of 1 May) at any given time being comprised of individuals not born within Australia.Out of the 200 countries which exist today, Australia is currently ranked third in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI) which measures the overall prosperity of a given country (accounting for average life expectancy, average income and average education). The Commonwealth is also the 8th highest ranked liberal democracy worldwide, with a set of civil liberties and political rights that overshadows the vast majority of the international community.Australia also maintains a highly developed, and mostly Free Market economy which is supplemented by a strong and vibrant public sector, especially in terms of Healthcare and Education. It also maintains a highly secular society, where religions from all over coexist together in harmony, and is also highly globalized and interconnected with the rest of the world, as evident from its membership in organisations such as the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, G20, ANZUS, OECD, APEC, and the ASEAN Plus Six.For the foreseeable future therefore, the Commonwealth of Australia will continue to make history as one of the World’s more indispensable nations. Of this fact, one can be certain.