Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TIMELINE
40,000 BC
The Eora people live in Sydney, split into several separate tribes including the Dharug-speaking
Cadigal around Sydney Cove. Ku-ring-gai people occupied the North Shore.
AD 1770
Lieutenant James Cook lands at Botany Bay and claims Australia for the British; he writes of the
indigenous population: 'all they seem'd to want was us to be gone'.
1788
The First Fleet drops anchor in Botany Bay, followed by Frenchman La Pérouse five days later; the
British decide Botany Bay is unsuitable and head north to Port Jackson.
1791
It's estimated that only three Cadigal people survive, their numbers decimated by the smallpox that
arrived with the First Fleet. The Cadigal had no natural immunity to the disease.
1825
Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) is split off from NSW and declared a colony in its own right, fol-
lowed by South Australia (1836), Victoria (1851) and Queensland (1859).
1836
The state of NSW shrinks, with South Australia declared a separate colony. Victoria would be
carved off in 1851 and Queensland in 1859.
1842
The transportation of convicts to New South Wales effectively ceases; over the course of the previ-
ous half-century 150,000 people had been dumped in the colony.
1842
Sydney is officially declared a city, and London-born merchant John Hosking is elected as its first
mayor.
1900
