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The Story of

Australia

1794 – 2025

Country in Oceania

  1. Australian frontier wars

    1 September 1794 – 1899

    The Australian frontier wars were the violent conflicts between Aboriginal Australians and White Australians (mostly those descended from British settlers) from the colonial period of Australia to at least 1928. The first conflict took place several months after the landing of the First Fleet in January 1788, and the last conflicts occurred in the early 20th century following the federation of the Australian colonies in 1901, with some occurring as late as 1934.

  2. Castle Hill convict rebellion

    5 March 1804

    The Castle Hill convict rebellion (also known as Battle of Vinegar Hill) was a convict rebellion in Castle Hill, Sydney, then part of the British colony of New South Wales. Led by veterans of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the poorly armed insurgents confronted the colonial forces of Australia on 5 March 1804 at Rouse Hill.

  3. Rum Rebellion

    26 January 1808 – 1 January 1810

    The Rum Rebellion of 1808 was a coup d'état in the British penal colony of New South Wales, staged by the New South Wales Corps in order to depose Governor William Bligh. Australia's first and only military coup to date, its name derives from the illicit rum trade of early Sydney, over which the 'Rum Corps', as it became known, maintained a monopoly.

  4. Black War

    1820s – 1832

    The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians in Tasmania from the mid-1820s to 1832 which precipitated the near-extermination of the Indigenous population. The conflict was fought largely as a guerrilla war by both sides; some 600 to 900 Aboriginal Australians and more than 200 British colonists died.

  5. Convincing Ground massacre

    1 March 1833 – 31 March 1834

    The Convincing Ground Massacre was a massacre of the Kilcarer gundidj clan of the Indigenous Gunditjmara people, by British whalers based at Portland Bay in south-eastern Australia. The massacre was part of the wider Eumeralla Wars between the British colonisers and Gunditjmara.

  6. Pinjarra massacre

    28 October 1834

    The Pinjarra massacre, in the past called the Battle of Pinjarra, occurred on 28 October 1834 in Pinjarra, Western Australia when a group of Bindjareb Noongar people were attacked by a detachment of 25 soldiers, police, and settlers led by Governor James Stirling. According to Stirling, "about 60 or 70" of the Bindjareb people were present at the camp and John Roe, who also participated, estimated about 70–80.

  7. Batman's Treaty

    6 June 1835

    Batman's Treaty was an agreement between the Port Phillip Association of British grazier colonists (represented by John Batman), and a group of Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung elders, for the purchase of land around Port Phillip, near the present site of Melbourne. The document came to be known as Batman's Treaty and is considered significant as it was the first and only documented time when Europeans negotiated their presence and occupation of Aboriginal lands directly with the traditional owners.

  8. Myall Creek massacre

    10 June 1838

    The Myall Creek massacre was the killing of at least 28 unarmed Aboriginal people in the Colony of New South Wales by eight colonists on 10 June 1838 at the Myall Creek in the north of the colony. Seven perpetrators were convicted of murder and hanged.

  9. Waterloo Bay massacre

    17 May 1849

    The Waterloo Bay massacre, also known as the Elliston massacre, was a clash between European settlers and Aboriginal Australians that took place on the cliffs of Waterloo Bay near Elliston, South Australia, in late May 1849. Part of the Australian frontier wars, the most recent scholarship indicates that it is likely that it resulted in the deaths of tens or scores of Aboriginal people.

  10. Eureka Rebellion

    3 December 1854

    The Eureka Rebellion was a rebellion by gold miners against the Colony of Victoria during the Victorian gold rush. It culminated in the Battle of the Eureka Stockade, which took place on 3 December 1854 at Ballarat between the rebels and colonial forces and, according to official records, resulted in 27 deaths and many injuries, the majority of casualties being rebels.

  11. Second Boer War

    11 October 1899 – 31 May 1902

    The Second Boer War was a conflict fought between 1899 and 1902 between the British Empire and the Boer republics (the South African Republic and Orange Free State), triggered by the discovery of gold in the Transvaal, specifically the Witwatersrand gold fields, and the ensuing political dispute over the voting rights of British expatriates (Uitlanders). In 1877, the British annexed the bankrupt Transvaal, and the British military neutralized the regional threat of the Zulu Kingdom in 1879 in the Anglo-Zulu War.

  12. Battle of Cocos

    9 November 1914

    The Battle of Cocos was a single-ship action that occurred on 9 November 1914, after the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney, under the command of John Glossop, responded to an attack on a communications station at Direction Island by the German light cruiser SMS Emden, commanded by Karl von Müller. After the retreat of the German East Asia Squadron from Southeast Asia, Emden had remained behind to function as a commerce raider.

  13. Battle of Jutland

    31 May 1916 – 1 June 1916

    The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between Britain's Royal Navy Grand Fleet, under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet, under Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, during the First World War. The battle unfolded in extensive manoeuvring and three main engagements from 31 May to 1 June 1916, off the North Sea coast of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula.

  14. Battle of Messines

    7 June 1917 – 14 June 1917

    The Battle of Messines (7–14 June 1917) was an attack by the British Second Army (General Sir Herbert Plumer), on the Western Front, near the village of Messines (Dutch: Mesen) in West Flanders, Belgium, during the First World War. The Nivelle Offensive in April and May had failed to achieve its more grandiose aims, had led to the demoralisation of French troops and confounded the Anglo-French strategy for 1917.

  15. Russian Civil War

    7 November 1917 – 25 October 1922

    The Russian Civil War was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire, lasting from 1917 to 1922, sparked by the overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Soviet Union in most of its territory.

  16. Battle of Amiens

    8 August 1918 – 12 August 1918

    The Battle of Amiens, also known as the Third Battle of Picardy, was the opening phase of the Allied offensive which began on 8 August 1918, later known as the Hundred Days Offensive, which ultimately led to the end of World War I. Allied forces advanced over 11 kilometres (7 mi) on the first day, one of the greatest advances of the war, with Gen Henry Rawlinson's British Fourth Army, with nine of its 19 divisions supplied by the fast-moving Australian Corps of Lt General John Monash and Canadian Corps of Lt General Arthur Currie, and Gen Marie Eugène Debeney's French First Army playing a…

  17. World War I

    11 November 1918

    World War I, or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. One of the deadliest conflicts in history, World War I caused 15 to 22 million deaths, including those resulting from war crimes and genocides.

  18. Statute of Westminster 1931

    1931

    The Statute of Westminster 1931 (22 & 23 Geo. 5.

  19. World War II

    1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945

    World War II, or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945), was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries were involved, with many engaging in total war on an unprecedented scale.

  20. North African campaign

    10 June 1940 – 16 May 1943

    The North African campaign of World War II took place in North Africa from 11 June 1940 to 13 May 1943, fought between the Allies and the Axis powers. It included campaigns in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts (Western Desert campaign, Desert War), in Morocco and Algeria (Operation Torch), and in Tunisia (Tunisia campaign).