Australian Stories matching your query...

Many Australians are directly or indirectly involved in farming. For those Australians not involved with farming, the country's recent rural and agricultural history still has strong links to the heritage and culture of Australia. Wheat and other grain ...

Australia is also recognised as producing the world's highest quality woollen fibre – Australian merino wool. John and Elizabeth Macarthur were married in Devonshire in England in 1788. In 1796, John Macarthur bought his first merino sheep from a ...

Eventually, streams catch more water or join other streams to form a river. The Murray River and its main tributary, the Darling River, are the two main rivers in the Murray-Darling River Basin. The Snowy River is probably Australia's most famous river,...

Australian and American soldiers in a trench. Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial. Left to right: Lt Norman Malcolm, 2 Pioneers; Sister Stella Malcom, Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS); Lt Eric Malcolm, 3 Division Artillery; Staff Nurse Ed...

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 ...

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...

Ernest Revell, Three Sisters, Blue Mountains, New South Wales, c. In March 1812, the Colonial Surveyor George William Evans was sent to explore Jervis Bay, to determine a possible inland route back to Port Jackson. Other explorers, such as Hume and Hove...

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...

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...

The first train lines in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide spanned only a few kilometres. These early inland rail lines formed the basis for the systems that would eventually become Australia's transcontinental railways. Diesel trains are still used for cou...

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...

Image courtesy of the National Trust of Queensland, Hou Wang Temple. The businesses in Chinatowns offered accommodation, medicinal herbs, fresh food grown by Chinese market gardeners and groceries. A Chinese school, a language and culture centre and a Ch...

Around 16,000 Australians volunteered to fight for Britain against the Dutch-Afrikaner, or Boer, settlers in South Africa from 1899 to 1902. Image courtesy of the Australian War Memorial: P01065.001. Matthews, Australian Light Horse in Boer War uniform. ...

Organisations such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) have been established to bring these important health services to remote and regional Australian communities. The Royal Flying Doctor Service provides free emergency and medical care to people w...

Australian folklore, its traditions, customs and beliefs are based on both Indigenous and also non-Indigenous people's knowledge and experience of history in Australia. Some of Australia's folklore remembers the relationship between Europeans and Aborigi...

Before white settlement, Aboriginal people survived off the native plants and animals of the Australian environment for thousands of years. Bush foods such as berries, roots and nectars were a vital part of the aboriginal diet in many areas. In the late...

These painters, amongst them Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder, were known by this name because of the artists' camps they shared in areas around Melbourne, including Heidelberg. Image courtesy of the National Gallery of ...

Blue Lake, Kosciuszko National Park. Australia has over 500 national parks. Most of our national parks are managed by the States and Territories of Australia; however the Commonwealth of Australia manages six national parks and a further 13 marine parks...

In 1788 the First Fleet landed at Camp Cove in Port Jackson with the 'cargo' of convicts which helped establish the penal colony of New South Wales. One in five of the convicts to arrive in the penal colony (1788-1823) was female and they made up the lar...

Image courtesy of the Snowy Hydro. The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme is by far the largest engineering project ever undertaken in Australia. What is the Snowy Mountains Scheme? ...