Australian Stories matching your query...

The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutchman, Willem Janszoon. In 1770, Englishman Lieutenant James Cook charted the Australian east coast in his ship HM Barque Endeavour. Coo...

2009 Australian of the Year, Professor Michael Dodson. Image courtesy of the National Australia Day Council. On Australia Day - 26 January - each year, the Prime Minister of Australia announces the Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year, Se...

Cable Beach, Broome, north-west Kimberley Coast, Western Australia. Most of Australia's population lives close to the coastline and the beach has long occupied a special place in the Australian identity. Based on this definition, the Coastal Studies Uni...

The bush has an iconic status in Australian life and features strongly in any debate about national identity, especially as expressed in Australian literature, painting, popular music, films and foods. The bush was revered as a source of national ideals b...

Eventually, the arrival of people from diverse societies created a cultural diversity that is now an integral part of Australian society and identity. Image courtesy of the Migration Museum, History Trust of South Australia. Migration Museum, History Trus...

The bark petitions were the first to use traditional forms and combine bark painting with text typed on paper. Petition to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by Galarrwuy Yunupingu from Yirrkala, Northern Territory, 23 July, 2008. In July 2008, Yunupingu presented...

NAIDOC originally stood for 'National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee' after a Day of Mourning was held on Australia Day, 1938. In 1991 NADOC became NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) to recognise Torres...

Portrait of Slim Dusty at the Australia Day Concert (i.e. Australia Day Live), Sydney Entertainment Centre, 1984, transparency. Country music, a derivative of folk music, originated in southern and western USA and consisted mainly of rural songs accompan...

Marvellous Melbourne Jazz Festival - Bernie McGann Group - Bernie McGann, sax; John Pochee , drum; Chuck Yates, keyboard; Jeff Kluke, bass. An Australian jazz sound has developed through a practice of innovation where performers improvised within particu...

Australian swimming successes at the Melbourne (1956), Rome (1960) and Tokyo (1964) Olympics fuelled enthusiasm for competitive swimming in pools. Swimming pools came to be seen as a standard local government community facility that was available to all ...

As elsewhere in Australia, European settlement disrupted Aboriginal patterns of land use and movement across the country, and many Aborigines died from European-brought diseases like influenza, smallpox and tuberculosis. The Griffins, Walter Burley and Ma...

Easter commemorates the resurrection (return to life) of Jesus Christ following his death by crucifixion. Easter eggs are traditionally eaten on Easter Sunday, however stores start stocking Easter treats well before the Easter holiday period. Early on Ea...

The first National Sorry Day was held on 26 May 1998 - one year after the tabling of the report Bringing them Home, May 1997. Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission into the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their fami...

In the early days of the Australian colonies, convict ballads and songs became the foundation of Australia's later day folk music and its first original compositions. Bush songs, ballads and music influenced and defined the folk music of the 1950s. Indi...

Patriotic music written in wartime has been used to express national pride, spread propaganda, encourage enlistment and motivate troops serving in Australia and on overseas duty. Until the First World War, patriotic music written for wars tended to dwell...

Image courtesy of the Migration Museum, History Trust of South Australia. The hundreds of thousands of people who arrived in Australia after the First World War greatly influenced Australia becoming a modern society. Image courtesy of the Australian War ...

Australia experiences a range of 'natural disasters' including bushfires, floods, severe storms, earthquakes and landslides. Fire can often follow drought, and drought can be followed by flood. I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, Of ra...

Works by many contemporary visual artists in Western Australia demonstrate a vital consciousness of the land. Western Australian art traces a presence on the land, a cultural loss and, ultimately, a belief in the future. Contemporary artists such as pai...

Unknown photographer, Freda Thompson (1906-1980), Pictured here in 1934 just before take off at Lympne Airport when she became the first Australian woman to fly solo from England to Australia, 1934. Courtesy of National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame. Avia...

Even though the four 'official' calendar seasons have the same names as the northern hemisphere seasons, the weather during these seasons is very different to northern hemisphere weather patterns. Indigenous Australians have long had their own seasonal c...