Why wasn't there a Scramble for Australia? (Short Animated Documentary)

When Europeans came across a large landmass that look easy to conquer, they generally fought amongst themselves for it. Yet unlike the Americas and Africa, there was no attempt at any other European country except for Britain to take the continent-sized Australia. So why not? To find out watch this short and simple animated history documentary.
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[@maskthem0ney295]

The amount of historical events that can be summed up with a person holding a sign that says 'Sounds pricey' is simultaneously insane and understandable

[@Warriorcats64]

And is it a Moneymaker or not? Kelly didn't think so.

[@ethribin4188]

Fact

[@scientificnameofpigs]

here before this blows up

[@user-be7pw3sm7d]

How is it in any way "insane"? You guys overexaggerate everything.

[@deleted-something]

true

[@jaywilliams9294]

Britian: Nah don't want it "France wants it" Britain: *NO ITS MINE*

[@sarpyasar5893]

“France can’t have nice thinks” Every british foreign minister ever

[@MartinCraig-zt2sv]

And that's pretty much the story of New Zealand the the Treaty of Waitangi 1840

[@yayhandles]

Australia specifically, or just in general?

[@Nibilim]

Not you. NEVER you!

[@gregynutbutter]

​@MartinCraig-zt2sv how so? I always thought it was because they couldn't stop the maoris from attacking them in the north and they couldn't fight them very well in the forests but idk I did get told that from a Maori could be a case of biased storytelling haha

[@ronlucock3702]

Fun Fact: when the Japanese started attacking the north of Australia in WWII, it was decided that should an invasion force actually land on our northern shores and try to make their way inland towards the major population centres on the east coast, Australian forces wouldn't bother fighting back. They would simply wait for the enemy to die in the deserts before ever making it that far on land. That's how big, & harsh, the Australian interior is.

[@dianafarmer5445]

Also the Japanese were 'allowed' to invade, because Hitler didn't want Australia, he only liked Tasmania, otherwise we'd be speaking German.

[@zimriel]

unsure how wonderful that strategery would have worked. japan was a naval power and would likely have fortified the northern coast, using them as bases to raid the major southeastern cities. japan would ignore perth and the west, except to bomb the crap out of the rails.

[@ronlucock3702]

@@zimriel You know what, my comment above was based on something I learned in either late Primary School or early high school. I even remember seeing maps of Aust with big red lines across the continent. No further research was made before I offerred my comment. Having now researched it ("The Brisbane Line"), I've come to learn that it was all just political bullshit, missunderstanding of policy by the politicions of the day & manipulation / scare mongering of the Aust people for political gain. Clearly, nothing has changed in politics in 80 years, but I apologise for calling it "fact" or referring to it as actual policy.

[@zimriel]

"Gapho replied: "zimriel The straits between PNG and AUS wouldn't be crossable by carriers and destroyers, and the islands were already fortified before the bombing of Darwin." I assumed the Torres would be fortified. I also assumed they wouldn't be fortified *very well*. Singapore showed how rotten WW2-era Britain's fortification schemes could get. And Japan's shallow-water game was pretty good, as shown in the Philippines. It may be the Aussies were more-motivated than the Filipinos to defend their own (although the Filipinos proved valiant resistance fighters after-the-fact).

[@Andrew-gn9qp]

​@@zimrielThe Philippines was an American colony, Filipinos were US nationals, and therefore the Philippines had no standing army. The US military in the Philippines was ill prepared, and Hawaii had been bombed which means no reinforcements. Douglas McArthur fled Manila to Australia. Filipinos had no choice but to surrender. This was an embarassment to the USA, and Filipinos as US nationals made them targets to the Japanese massacres.

[@bohdanharasymiw4441]

Actually maps of Australia were not completed until the epic journeys of Matthew Flinders time. His maps were so good they were used into the 20th century in many places. Foreigners(non brittish) did not map the Australian coastline except in sections and they guessed the rest, even joining Australia to New Guinea and other countries on various maps. The coastline is so large it took Flinders decades to complete his task(albeit interrupted) in many cases sailing the coast in a small boat for thousands of kms(nautical miles i guess?🤔). Remember the Australian coastline is 34,000 kms. One of the great navigators of history

[@jasonbennett7002]

Nicolas Baudin's maps?

[@bohdanharasymiw4441]

@@jasonbennett7002 mathew flinders was the first person to navigate the coast inshore. And Baudin did not map all of Australia. Im not sure he even sailed the whole coast did he?

[@jasonbennett7002]

@@bohdanharasymiw4441 Flinders and Baudin were circumnavigating Australia at the same time in opposite directions. They met at Encounter Bay (so named) in South Australia. I believe Baudin produced completed maps and they may have even been published before Flinders.

[@matei8master8]

As a Romanian, I'm heartbroken by our lack of Australian empire.

[@jameslawrie3807]

I think the people of Romania should immediately come here and assert their claim, I'd back them for their cuisine alone.

[@matei8master8]

@@jameslawrie3807 Aw, mate, wherever in Australia you are, bless you. That warmed me to my heart ❤️

[@andrewnewton2246]

To be fair we have thousands of bats in Australia.

[@hazchemel]

Aaah ... we need a township called ... South Bucharest? ... Trans-Transylvania? 😊

[@hazchemel]

​@@andrewnewton2246you mean, in Australescu?

[@TheTrex9000]

Is nobody gonna talk about how he managed to fit Prussia's borders within Australia while simultaneously making it look nice?

[@Merennulli]

No, we all agreed not to talk about it at the meeting you missed earlier.

[@TheTrex9000]

@@Merennulli Oh, I see.

[@sonvan6714]

ok

[@aariyanmahmud301]

@@Merennulli lol i have never heard that one before nice

[@JackRabbitSlim]

@@Merennulli That was a pretty sweet meeting, one of those 'had to be there' kinda moments. Excellent pastries too. Sure glad I didn't miss out on it, boy would I have felt like a loser.

[@smurftums]

Apparently New Zealand missed out on being a French colony by a matter of weeks. That would make an interesting video. :)

[@zimriel]

... and then France surrenders to the Maori and, today, Paris, Nice, and Marseilles speak Polynesian dialect instead of Arabic

[@markfarrell6103]

I'm 6 Generation Australian. The Portuguese discovered Australia . early Portuguese navigators were the first Europeans to sight Australia between 1521 and 1524, well before the arrival of Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon in 1606 on board the Duyfken

[@wildspirit3182]

Was looking for this comment. The first europeans to discover the land down under were the Portuguese, I'm surprised the British narrator didn't know that as it's a well known fact in Europe.

[@anthony.3614]

​@@wildspirit3182He also could have thrown in the fact that the dingo (an Asian dog-wolf hybrid) was left in Australia 7,000 years ago by Southeast Asian seafarers and coconut palms which are not native to Australia and require physical planting were found growing all along Australia's extreme northern coastlines. Southeast Asian seafarers (probably from Borneo) and possibly Polynesian seafarers visited Australia before Europeans without a doubt.

[@wildspirit3182]

@@anthony.3614 Polynesians and asian nations definitely had contact thru trade with indigenous people down under, hence write I wrote "first" europeans. This is how the Portuguese navigators knew of its existence and possible routes for ships to safely sail. The dingo theory is neither here nor there for me, they are very much at home here. Many use it as an argument to cull numbers but 7,000 years makes anything intrinsically part to the ecosystem. Stating an organism as native or not discounts biological changes that have been happening since the dawn of time. Otherwise practically everything is foreign to where it is now. I have observed coconuts self-seeding and growing naturally on their own along tropical shorelines without human intervention. By design they float across oceans on tides and plant themselves on tropical beaches. Sure they grow on masse the closer to the equator but inland is where planting is done by humans.

[@MrNixity]

This is very debated and not accepted as fact as the evidence isn’t strong enough.

[@DIY_Miracle]

It is worth noting that there is actually a lot of highly valuable mineral resources in Australia but serious prospecting didn't really occur until the British had already staked quite a strong claim. Melbourne was at one point the second richest city in the empire for a number of decades due to the immense amount of gold pouring out of north west Victoria. Cash crops might have made America, fur made Canada, spices made Indonesia, oil made Saudi Arabia, but gold made Australia.

[@thejohnbeck]

The other thing that makes America is the crazy good river network, which offers cheap transport

[@seaofghosts]

And sheep.

[@victorsamsung2921]

Cattle and sheep made Australia too, due to the flat, drier and grassy interior of the continent. Which allowed for a large number of farms to be built and settle.

[@DIY_Miracle]

@@victorsamsung2921 Obviously livestock mattered. We do not live in a world where a region can only produce one resource

[@grondhero]

@@DIY_Miracle Mmm, _lovestock._

[@iliketea9122]

If people back then knew just how resource-rich Australia was there absolutely would have been a scramble for it. Having 17% of the worlds gold and 30% of the worlds iron alone would have made it worth it.

[@ninjafruitchilled]

We got a lot of Uranium too, though I guess it was just another weird rock to folk back then

[@peaceraybob]

The problem then, as now, is how remote and difficult to extract most of those resources are.

[@jgdooley2003]

The one thing that amazes me is how Kerry Packer, the Australian mining millionaire used metal detecting technology, magnetic anomoly detection, from WW2 originally used to detect submarines to detect literal mountains of Iron ore in Australia. Another is that the worlds heaviest and longest trains are used to ship endless quantities of coal to seaports on the east coast for transhipment to Far East nations.

[@mikkelrw1606]

Don't they also have some of the most high quality coal, which made Chinas recent sanctions backfire?

[@nepnep1453]

@@mikkelrw1606yes

[@nickwaz98]

i appreciate that your videos aren't needlessly long, and always are straight to the point without repeating information constantly to hit an arbitrary length. hard to find nowadays on youtube, much appreciated - good work

[@onodera3964]

Anyone notice the single Australia-New Guinea landmass on the Dutch map? Turns out everyone ignored Luís Vaz de Torres, who sailed between them in 1606, for 150 years, while the Dutch sailed across the Torres strait without even noticing it was one.

[@zimriel]

It turns out that Australia and New Guinea share similar birdlife and plantlife. "Wallace Line". If you went to one cape and saw the same sort of thing as you saw on another cape, it was reasonable to assume they're the same landmass. And yeah they used to be the same continent

[@VanillaMacaron551]

It's a patchwork of islands. Biologists note that it's only a matter of time before a bat brings a virus across from Asia, by island hopping across Torres Strait. One of these could be Nipah Virus.

[@megakillerx]

Another fun fact is that Sweden under Gustav III were heavily interested in building colonies in India (built a factory a few miles south of Pondicherry before it got raided) and most importantly, Australia. The king hired a Dutch-English explorer William Bolts to survey and settle near modern day Perth. However, the king and Sweden overall got struck with a sudden case of payback against Russia and the colonial venture got immediately cancelled.

[@AaronOfMpls]

Starting around 1638, Sweden had a colony on the Delaware River too, in North America. But they lost this New Sweden to the Dutch in 1655, who then lost it -- along with the rest of New Netherland -- to England in 1664. The Dutch captured both areas back in 1673, but lost them to England again in 1674. In the years after, the former New Sweden was split off from New York (former New Netherlands) and partitioned between the colonies of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. ...Which all became part of the newly-independent US from 1776/1783.

[@bakrahabibi5471]

Its funny how the Mughal empire was India's last real chance of staying independent, as well as a great power. But I guess Indians never really desired unity unless its on their terms.

[@navneetnair3314]

To be fair, the Maratha Empire before 1763 seemed like a good option too, but after said date it more less devolved into a confederacy of smaller states.

[@bakrahabibi5471]

Marathas were never a good option. They were state based purely on raiding. Plus, it was a confederacy in which no one person had the real say in things. Every tribe of the confederacy wanted to dominate the state and it eventually fell to infighting. The Mughal empire on the otherhand, had an absolute monarch who was synonymous with the state itself. If only the later emperors were as competant as Aurangzeb or Akbar.

[@yarumillai6180]

​@@bakrahabibi5471 Probably becuase the mughals were incompetent ?. I think anyone, not just indians would desire a capable ruler like Shivaji who actually reformed instead of inbred monarchs who wanted to impose islam because "muh troo relijin"

[@andysorensen1737]

“An ongoing event of freedom” 😂. This channel is great.

[@johnnysteradactyl558]

That headline looks like the ultimate blue herring

[@memes4u378]

The Dutch,Prussians, French, and potentially Chinese all found it and said: "Yeah nah, it's full of sand, dessert, and fuck all else"

[@Iris_n_Parti]

I have occasionally visited Botany Bay, especially at night so as to see the entire Commercial Port light up. At the mouth of the bay, there is an Old Colonial Naval Fort, not quite impressive looking from where I usually was able to see it. My dad told me that it was built in preparation of a French Invasion which never came. Just like most Colonial Forts I've came across in Australia, non of them seem to be big enough to garrison an army of no more than a couple hundred soldiers. It often confused me about those Forts since they seem to be really tiny when you compare them to a Medieval Castle and I'd assume they were supposed to have heavy ordnance to counter an invading fleet. There is a Maritime Museum in Sydney that has a display showcasing all of the old Colonial Forts of Sydney, most of which no longer exist. Judging by the story of the Fort at Botany Bay and knowing that were more across the Colony, they all seemed to be built with the purpose of countering a French Invasion that never happened

[@wilbertting9211]

It's amazing how I didn't think of this topic, but the moment I realized "No empire rushed for Australia" I immediately rushed to see the video. Good job History Matters.

[@tramnguyenduy954]

ok

[@elrey8876]

*AS FAR* as I can tell, Australia is the only single-nation continent in recorded history. And I predict it won't remain that way. Climate change is starting to affect resource and land availability. Similarly, populations in Asia are putting increasing pressure on their resources. Antarctica is gradually being colonized by China and other nations, even including Russia - which will mean an expansion of naval and commercial seafaring around our southern perimeter. China is also expanding into the Pacific and pushing into Australia's traditional area of influence. *I'D SAY* within 100-200 years someone will annex the northwest or west of Australia with the intention of claiming mineral resources, fishing rights, habitable land, and transforming arid areas into fertile territory for food production.

[@babycakelings]

@@elrey8876honestly, I really doubt that. Reason being is America is already building up the military in Australia to prepare exactly for this to potentially happen. We have strong allyship with the British and Americans, they wouldn’t let another country take us just out of pride. Add in how little land is actually liveable here and global warming destroying a lot of it, it’s not worth it for any country to attempt it. At least not unless something big changes here.

[@masenko4519]

​@@elrey8876Western Australia ready have a history of trying to annex themselves from the mainland lol

[@FutureMan420Blazer]

In my EU4 game, having just won the protestant league as Denmark, i got a popup saying "Portuguese Australian Colonial nation formed" or something like that. It was 1604 lolz.

[@rad4924]

If you've ever been to Australia then you'll already know why there was never a scramble for it.

[@Toonrick12]

Pretty much that if it isn't shoreline, it's dry as hell.

[@brandonlyon730]

And yet the Great Powers eventually scrambled for the Sahara.

[@andysorensen1737]

Not to mention all the animals out to get you.

[@highgrounder5238]

I mean, the french scrambled over sahara, the outback in comparison sounds positively pleasant

[@scholaroftheworldalternatehist]

@@highgrounder5238 Probably since they already had interests in Algeria. Australia was a world away and France lacked naval power to go there

[@darkbunglex]

As an Aussie this is a really good summary in under 3 mins 🎉

[@lukemurphy5434]

Worth considering: There was an agreement between Spain and Portugal brokered by the pope for a no conflict partition of unclaimed land. The demarcation line runs through Australia, and as Portugal is an ally of Britain from time immemorial the possible Portuguese claim was respected by the British who officially claimed only the Spanish side. Unofficial settlements followed on the Portuguese side to which Portugal did not object. The demarcation line set by the pope remains a state line of in modern Australia for that reason. 2:54

[@duskpede5146]

huh. thats a cool piece of trivia. do you have a source for it?

[@martindormer2116]

Ken oath.

[@Dinki-Di]

@@duskpede5146 Kenneth McIntyre's 1977 book, The Secret Discovery of Australia; Portuguese ventures 200 years before Cook.

[@noluckyyy]

That Prussia in Australia at 2:15 is gold ngl

[@engtilde]

Under Prussia

[@sallmandar1027]

Except that Prussia is like 6 times bigger than what it actually is

[@JohnnyRose775]

I love the description of the Revolutionary War as 'an ongoing event of freedom'

[@maasro]

Meh, more like a difference in opinion on taxation.

[@zjkbrewer]

That sounds like a great band name

[@randomintrovertedspider7510]

@@maasro Well, we did want our right as British citizens to be represented to be respected, and they didn't, so I suppose it could be called that.

[@Dave_Sisson]

It depends how you describe it. I call it an illegal mutiny against their rightful king, but that's just my view.

[@Teknanam]

@@Dave_Sisson There is a such thing as a legal mutiny?

[@accountforcommenting]

I always wondered about this thanks for the info

[@briancrowther3272]

Thankyou. I left the uk in 81 for sydney oz, still in sydney. Done loads of reading re oz since and aquiredva politics ba degree from a good oz uni. You little 3 mon presentation here answered a question I never really consudred and it is an important one in understanding oz etc. Thanyou so much.

[@etherospike3936]

0:16 As a Romanian , I was really proud that the western part of Australia has been attributed to us !

[@Ghreinos]

Plot twist, it was the flag from chad.

[@jasonhaven7170]

Why? Are you proud to be a coloniser?

[@Banana_Split_Cream_Buns]

@@jasonhaven7170 Romania never colonised anyone. The comment was intended to be humourous.

[@Banana_Split_Cream_Buns]

I hate to say that there's not much in that portion of Australia. Mostly iron, some gold, some crocs, and a lot of people on meth. That's about it.

[@McPruden]

​​@@Banana_Split_Cream_Bunses you did... The dacians... And the vampires.

[@ArthurCSchaper]

Please please do a video on the following subjects: 1. Why did the People's Revolution of 1848 fail in the Germanies and Spain? 2. Why do people drive on different sides of the road in different countries?

[@dragostocai973]

for #2 the answer is Napoleon

[@-MarcelDavis-]

I second that!

[@Xris10BUL]

I would also like to know why the ottomans didn’t participate in the napoleononic wars

[@theshrubking9974]

​@@Xris10BULthey did, when Napoleon invaded Egypt

[@nonameuserua]

@@dragostocai973 probably the most convenient one-word answer, my thanks. It’s pretty hard to live in the world where everyone would answer “Britain” instead 😁 I would widen by telling “Napoleon and long-range wagon trains in North America”

[@theknightswhosay]

A Danish colony in southern Australia is a wild idea. But I guess it’s not much stranger than the Norwegian islands off of Antarctica.

[@YusufNasihi]

Joh Bjelke-Petersen ended up ruling Queensland anyway

[@danidejaneiro8378]

Plenty of Danish immigrants eventually made their way over and produced offspring and there's been a steady stream of Danish backpackers passing through for decades.

[@theknightswhosay]

@@danidejaneiro8378 It’s not that much of a colonizing country, especially outside of the North Atlantic.

[@danidejaneiro8378]

@@theknightswhosay - sorry I'm not sure how that relates to my comment.

[@theknightswhosay]

@@danidejaneiro8378 it seemed like you were saying such a thing seemed realistic

[@solrac41604]

Because the Emus already colonized it...

[@Nikkidafox]

There's just not a whole lot in Australia. It's mainly just mineral resources which were also usually abundant in Africa as well. And with 99% of it being completely hostile to human life, there wasn't a lot of competition for it. Also I love how the Dutch were offered Western Australia. You know, the part (outside of Perth) that's almost completely uninhabited.

[@tadcastertory1087]

Hey, we British are generous. If it looks horrible, let someone else have it!

[@undrscrh3194]

Mate, it's not 99% inhabitable, it's closer to 79% from what I've experienced living there all my life

[@draphotube4315]

Why didnt we ever keep it or get it lie wtf

[@draphotube4315]

@@tadcastertory1087 the south west Lion Cape has a good climate and fertile soils

[@joshuah5556]

God bless the kalbari reef for keeping the Dutch out

[@dangerousnoodle8779]

Europa Universalis players know that it was the Mamluks and Brittany that actually colonized Australia

[@Briggie]

Ottomans always seem to like colonizing Australia in my playthroughs. Also they like swiping Taiwan from China.

[@hachwarwickshire292]

Brittany .... is still the British ! The clue is in the name 😊

[@cryptocsguy9282]

@@hachwarwickshire292 lmao , British as in Celtic peoples , the English are foreigners (Germanic )

[@darylvanengelenburg5865]

For me always spain

[@28pbtkh23]

Amazing history in about two and a half minutes!

[@scouseaussie1638]

Best country in the world, leaving the UK was the best thing I ever did.Great weather and great people.🇦🇺

[@j.r5159]

It’s not in the top 50

[@marcdevries1356]

Its too freaking hot there, dangerous for your health skin cancer rates Rank Country 1 Australia

[@morgand93]

Highest average wealth per capita, extremely low crime amongst a lot of other things. Easily top 3 is pretty much every relevant metric.

[@jjkanal640]

@@j.r5159it’s probably top 20

[@j.r5159]

@@jjkanal640 it sux

[@Gamers.195]

Australia was finally remembered by someone

[@SamAronow]

And New Zealand remains ignored.

[@andrewhopkins886]

meanwhile in New Zealand:

[@bababababababa6124]

@@andrewhopkins886 tf is a New Zealand stop making stuff up

[@edwinhuang9244]

@@bababababababa6124 I think it's this thing beyond Earth, said to be inhabited by mysterious beings who sees the earth in a 2D form.

[@bababababababa6124]

@@edwinhuang9244 no way that’s actually real surely no one believes that

[@Meelis13]

Prussia overlapped on Australia is one of those joke reference details i love this channel for (aside from, well, it being nice informative channel about interesting history)

[@Ggr1406]

Good video and good information

[@tonyrobinson9046]

Great work.

[@TimeBucks]

I think it worked out pretty well.

[@JahangirAlam-cs3xp]

Vary vary nice

[@shihabuddin6020]

Good

[@taposhkumarmondal6914]

Great

[@sabzali6277]

👍

[@robinsononate87]

Great

[@stooge_mobile]

Insanely, Perth was founded before Melbourne and Adelaide were. This was before railways were used here (1829). There were no settlements for thousands of kilometres (as the crow flies, sydney is more than 3,000km away). It's a 4,100km sailing trip from Perth to Sydney. Prevailing westerly winds make the journey *relatively* quick from Perth to Sydney, but in the opposite direction it took forever to get back. It was far quicker to supply Perth from India than from Sydney. Perth had very little to do with the rest of Australia until steam transport was invented.

[@willhooke]

Interesting thought that India supplies Perth more easily than Sydney does Thank you 👍🏻

[@89Djm]

Albany was founded in 1826 as a military base prior to Perth & Fremantle.

[@stooge_mobile]

@@89Djm That's dope, didn't know that, cheers.

[@planetdisco4821]

Perth arguably still has little to do with the rest of Australia lol

[@dantemadden1533]

@@planetdisco4821 thankfully, we don’t like them there westerners😂

[@KeanuRigley]

Many think that Australia was colonised by Britain but it was really James Bissinette that did all the hard work

[@johnkern1878]

La Perouse landed in botany Bay 6 days after the first fleet in 1788. Then sailed to the New Caledonia area and promptly got killed. The French did not find out for 20-30 years what was here. By then it was too late.

[@YourVintageStick]

Brit 1: Sir the French are showing interest in Australia again Brit 2: *sigh* Build another settlement

[@RoseAbrams]

For a future video, maybe you should explore the "convict" angle of this a bit more. My understanding is that this crowd didn't consist of robbers and murderers as one might suspect, but rather of petty thieves and government critics and just generally poor people.

[@moritamikamikara3879]

Yeah, a lot of the 18th century was pretty hard on England so you had a lot of petty theft, mostly of bread or occasionally of animals, just to keep people fed. The government didn't really like this because obviously, and so rather than doing things to try to make all the theft unnecessary, they just dumped all involved in Australia, which... I guess sorta worked out in the end.

[@CountScarlioni]

Laws were harsh in Britain at the time of early colonisation (earning the name "The Bloody Code") but then they were harsh everywhere in the world. Nobody today would ever want to live under the legal framework of that world! The Georgian British just _really_ didn't like prisons. They thought the concept of lengthy incarceration was inhumane and brutal - and they had a point, 18th century prisons everywhere where horrible places. Cold, damp, rat infested flea pits that made people sick or insane. For serious crimes, execution was seen as a mercy and for lesser crimes, Transportation was seen as doing convicts a favour, sparing them the horrors of prison life. Transportation was not normally forever. There'd be a term of years that would have to be spent in the colony, but at the end of that time they could travel back home if they so wished (and could stump the money to afford the ticket). Some did indeed return at the end of their sentence but many did just build whole new lives in their fated destinations. The system of transportation withered away as the penal and justice system of the UK modernised in the Victorian period. By which time many were setting sail for those distant colonies willingly. I guess it made little sense to send someone somewhere for free as a punishment when others were selling their whole livelihoods to make the same journey! I don't know when Transportation stopped entirely but by the 1850s it was becoming a very rare sentence.

[@MrJHDK]

Fields of Athenry 🎵 🎶

[@AndoCommando1000]

You are correct. The international joke is that Australia was a land of English criminals. But all the murderers and rapists (in England) were hanged. But Britain wasn't in the habit of hanging people for stealing loaves of bread to feed their family, nor things like minor acts of fraud or stealing sheep or getting into an altercation with someone and getting caught. So yes, generally starving people at a time when there was zero welfare - even rich people who were down on their luck were often incarcerated - many of them educated tradespeople. So these are the sorts of people who were shipped off to Australia. Not heinous criminals. Among them, MANY Irish people (catholics) who were a disparaged minority in extremely protestant England and therefore were overrepresented in prisons. ALSO - don't forget, to sail a whole bunch of prisoners there, you ALSO need naval officers (ie NOT prisoners but actual British officers with naval commissions), skilled sailors and shipmen, armed soldiers, various architects and builders, physicians, engineers and their wives and families. Many of the convicts themselves were also quite educated but just, for whatever historical reason, incarcerated.

[@TerminatorHIX]

Chartists were among the transported too. Some of their ideas found traction in the Australian colonies, though; the secret ballot was also known as the Australian ballot.

[@lachlanmcvey7885]

I am Australian and have lived in the outback (80% of Australia) for years. It is desolate as hell. Even the east coast which is now mainly nice farmland was once eucalyptus bush and scrub land which had to be cleared. Sydney which was one of the nicer areas was on the verge of collapse as a colony before aborigines led Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson over the blue mountains to suitable grazing land. The Aborigines truly are an amazing race of people to have survived here. The Polynesian expansion and asian empires didn’t even attempt invasion or settlement because they would have died of starvation. There is evidence of Asian ships arriving (aboriginal cave paintings) but none stuck around. Even now 95% of Australians live in 10% of the country (mostly on the coast). You can drive for days without seeing a house in parts of the country even today. The Sahara contained valuable trade routes linking the recourses of sub Sahara to North Africa and Europe that the French and Britain wanted to control. The desserts in Australia link nowhere with nowhere. The minerals in Australia also weren’t really found until modern geology and nobody initially knew gold (for the gold rush) was present because the Aborigines didn’t care about it. They only stumbled onto it in rural Victoria. In short Europeans new Australia existed and so did Asian empires and likely also the Polynesians but none had the knowledge to be able to survive here like the Australian aborigines. It is also a long way by sea from anywhere so supporting a colony a long way from anywhere by sea is difficult. In short there was no competition early on because nobody could make a go of it except the Aborigines.

[@glenemma1]

Well done - you summed it up pretty well.

[@BingoBongo-or5ni]

The convicts made a go of it cause there was no where else for them to go

[@dianafarmer5445]

I disagree only the Aboriginals were the only ones to be able to survive here. I'm sure if the American Indians had been the ones to come here they would've survived, same with the Mongolians and other Indigenous Tribes.

[@BingoBongo-or5ni]

@@dianafarmer5445 it was a joke but a bit dry for you just like this country, as in all places in the world alot of deaths occur in order to gain the knowledge to live in such extreme condition. But what you probably don't realise based on your statement, there was a group of people here before the aboriginals, and the aboriginals wiped them out.

[@dianafarmer5445]

@@BingoBongo-or5ni Ok. Yes I did know that. There is also evidence the Eygptians came here 10,000 years ago too. They were mining here.

[@billstewartxxx]

good job!

[@karlbaresic4091]

My great grandfather was one of those pesky krauts, a botanist working for the Kaiser in SA (South Australia during the 1880s. Although the east was settled by that point, much of SA was only claimed, and not settled. Even today, Australia is one of the least densily populated countries in the world, but it doesn't feel like it driving the M7 during peak hour.

[@KL-un8sf]

It’s cos more than half of us live in 3 cities haha.

[@duskpede5146]

australia is literally the second least dense country in the world

[@legendofrobbo]

they spent too much on immigrating half the world here and not enough on upgrading our cities so they can actually hold that many people comfortably

[@tessa2017]

Me too, our great great etc grandfathers may have known each other

[@mark-wo2wj]

Australia is the one of the most urban countries in the world...irony hey.

[@skiphouston7392]

Just one small comment. At the 1:53 mark you show the ship going along the south coast of the country and flags being planted at Adelaide, Melbourne, Tasmania. But after Sydney and Parramatta, the next settlement was in Tasmania and then after that, Queensland, followed shortly after by Albany on the south coast of Western Australia and then Perth a couple of years later, then known as the Swan River Colony. What is now South Australia was one of the last parts of the country to be settled. So I know you probably did it for simplicity sake, but it makes the colonisation look different to how it actually played out.

[@ACDZ123]

Yeah i noticed that he left out Perth which is older than Melbourne and Adelaide

[@glasshousemtns]

And why when they choose Queensland did they choose the Town of 1770 to land yet to this day it is a sleepy seaside twin town. And when Cook landed, where did Banks go with his men and where are those records of the sweetest sweet bread in the world! And the baker’s family remnants are where? No where to be seen. Everything the convicts built was already here. A forgotten (erased) civilisation.

[@Tamaresque]

And, bonus for S.A. it's the only state not first settled by convicts.

[@chriskostopoulos8142]

@@Tamaresque Neither was western Australia nor victoria I believe.

[@antlover5396]

@@chriskostopoulos8142 the swan river colony was established 1829 but didnt receive convicts until 1842. so we didnt start as a penal colony but did eventually take in prisoners. south australia *never* received prisoners

[@cb2291]

Very enlightening

[@twitters98]

Woohoo more videos about this place please

[@dabi2k]

Romanian Australia would’ve been a superpower

[@georgeamesfort3408]

Free sarmale for every dead emu

[@mikloscsuvar6097]

What Romanian? Chadian! Chad was independent that time.

[@Sig509]

or they would have sent all the Gypsies there, like the UK did with convicts

[@joshuah5556]

Rosemary Poppa

[@mojewjewjew4420]

​@@mikloscsuvar6097chad wasnt even a country at the time.

[@MatthewDoel32]

Once again, History Matters answers a question I’d never even thought to ask, and I love this channel for always posing and answering interesting questions.

[@Wooargh]

Isn't Google just the greatest company ever? They give us our history, our search engine, our videos, our email, our browser, our education, our maps, our operating systems, and it's all 100% free. And now that they control the Internet they even cancel, censor, and demonetize anyone who goes against current political and social trends. We love you Google. Thank you for keeping us safe.

[@Rusty_Gold85]

type Australia into wikipedia and get the rest of the facts

[@Pbz-rj6ez]

As an Australian, it is so funny to see people comment about how dangerous the wildlife is over here. Tbh most of the wildlife kinda just chill most of the time not to mention how scared they are of you.

[@samuelraphaelfranco10]

not the drop bears tho

[@paulboger7377]

Fellow Aussie, leave the animals alone, they’ll leave you alone 👍🇦🇺

[@Local_GhostFan]

Most of the wildlife is chill once I got chased by a snake but it’s mostly chill up here

[@adam8822]

haha same here mate like i say the biggest predator in Aus is the same size as my old staffie same weight anyway 😂

[@Theduckwebcomics]

To be fair though that's because almost all Australians live in the nice safe cities l, we just don't come into contact with much wildlife... While in the bush dingoes, casowories, funelwebs, all sorts of snakes, venomous ants, blue ringed octopus, all sorts of jellyfish, sharks, stonefish, Trocus shells, seasnakes, and so many other things kill people all the time. Meanwhile in the cities we just ignore it all 😅

[@coolpank8638]

2:13 That's a weird sha... omg that's so clean

[@cooper7240]

Best animated history channel ever.

[@wb4exeya]

0:10 It was actually Portugal in 1521/1524.

[@miguelsilva2610]

Spot on :)

[@McPruden]

From Timor they were aware of bird migrations south, but exploration was considered secret.

[@Saltiren]

Words about Books podcast was so cool it got two patreon shoutouts

[@mareelsreeled]

Nice content.

[@timallardyce1216]

Botany Bay was the initially selected site for what is now Sydney due to positive reports on it from Captain Cook, HOWEVER the new arrivals found Botany Bay unsatisfactory and moved north to what is now known as Sydney Harbour. Americans commonly make this mistake in thinking that Botany Bay was the site of the first European settlement in Australia, most notably in the movie Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan

[@tepidtuna7450]

Botany Bay was the first site. It failed, THEN they moved to Sydney Harbour. 🤗

[@sgu02nsc66]

Botany Bay? Botany Bay?! Oh no!!

[@spaceforgrace3312]

@@tepidtuna7450 Watson's Bay I believe. Don't blame them, it's lovely.

[@ironfist7789]

@sgu02nsc66 Well they sent them there with just the contents of a few cargo containers. Noone bothered to check on them.

[@sgu02nsc66]

@@ironfist7789 captain Kirk never bothered to check on their progress!

[@wowyourereallyreadingthis]

Romanian Australia isn't real, it can't hurt you 0:16

[@johnsharpe6411]

It would be interesting to know about the British encounters with the Australian salt water crocodile and the stories surrounding them. It's kind of like the 18th century meets the Cretaceous period. Sure it made for great fireside stories when they got back home, assuming they made it home.

[@belloshukurat6037]

That's very nice

[@d0rryx274]

I always love how he talks about topics that most people had no idea even happen. Keep up the amazing work!

[@TheSilverCanine_R3D-H]

Fellow protogen

[@d0rryx274]

@@TheSilverCanine_R3D-H goober >:3

[@fuglbird]

Nothing happened. That's the whole point.

[@okwiumeokolo1481]

This is why I love your channel. I've been interested in history for a decade and you ask interesting questions that I've never considered

[@docmcbungas3303]

If you want to learn the full history check out 'The Fatal Shore' by Robert Hughes. Fascinating read.

[@bartender.official]

You know the more I learn about history the more I learn about how Britain ended up with the netherlands land.

[@duskpede5146]

the netherlands themselves were even a practical puppet of the british after the dutch king became king of england

[@joz6683]

Another great video. I am amazed how good these mini documentaries are informative and entertaining. Please keep up the good work.

[@pabcu2507]

Because no one wanted to mess with the emus

[@rekhakaushik4292]

Nice video

[@akritidwivedistudies2521]

Very nice

[@akritidwivedistudies2521]

Very nice

[@seanreed3089]

A moment of silence for all the people arriving in Australia without knowing how absolutely bonkers the wildlife was. Even the plants were racking up kill streaks.

[@clintonbreeden6970]

Because James Bisonette personally purchased it from the natives, then gave it to Britain as a present.

[@john2g1]

Too bleak to be funny... Unless you know nothing about the history of Australia I guess.

[@IlikeMilfs2003]

Nah it's funny

[@john2g1]

@@IlikeMilfs2003 Proving ignorance is bliss?

[@eleum1400]

@@john2g1 na but he right tho, it's pretty funny

[@remoosecode7558]

@@john2g1 Calm down emily.

[@M1RR06N44]

0:01 that first sign explains it all

[@brunoduarte8817]

Actually it is most likely that the portuguese got to Australia first. Recently new arqueological evidence backs it up. But then again, the northern shores of Australia didn't look very profitable by comparison to India, Indonesia and the likes (not that many people to convert as well).

[@alexjv1370]

Imagine wanting to willingly deal with an animal that is the embodiment of “Do you even lift bro?”

[@peterdisabella2156]

Koalas are scary

[@john2g1]

Every day is leg day bro... I only box for the leg cardio.

[@idjles]

At 0:50 you have a "mapped" coast on The Great Australian Bight and South Australia being mapped in "late 18th Century." This coastline was first mapped in 1802 by Matthew Flinders.

[@Dave_Sisson]

Only three years out.

[@KyloBarley]

I love how most of this guys videos can be answered with “because Britain”

[@assininecomment1630]

0:25 - "...by the Dutch, who named it New Holland, _after Holland back home."_ I have always wondered about this. 😐 🤦🏼‍♂️

[@Kevinlikescountrys]

Yet another great video from this channel I love it!

[@IdiotToonz]

I Salute Romanian Australia 🇷🇴🇷🇴🇷🇴🇷🇴

[@georgeamesfort3408]

Glory to Australia Românească

[@Nikki-tx6kh]

Can the Moldovans have a small space for musical entertainment? Your entries are kinda good, but somehow, the Moldovans are better.

[@donpollo3154]

@@Nikki-tx6kh the idea of Moldovans with didgeridoos scares me

[@nonameuserua]

@@donpollo3154 fun fact: carpathians have their own didgeridoos, look up *trembita/trâmbiță*

[@Ayy_Doll_Fiddler]

​@@Nikki-tx6khhow about, no?

[@VanillaMacaron551]

I read an account of a French person visiting early Sydney Town. Lots of interesting observations, visiting Manly etc, and noticing "the curious English habit of flogging".

[@alparslankorkmaz2964]

nice video

[@Banana_Split_Cream_Buns]

1:43 This border still partially exists today as the Queensland - Northern Territory border.

[@mrgopnik5964]

I swear, imperial German colonial history can be summarized in two words “too late”

[@marlonmoncrieffe0728]

Yeah, both Germany and, while I am at it, Italy, unified as late as 1871; that's not even two centuries ago! P.S. After the Napoleonic Wars, I think Prussia should have started a campaign, not unlike China's Age of the Warring States, where they focused on unifying all the German states whether through conquest or marriage; whichever was most convenient.

[@DomWeasel]

@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 'here they focused on unifying all the German states' They did. That was the entire bedrock of politics in the German states throughout the 19th century with the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 being the deciding factor in which of the two most powerful German nations would rule over the rest.

[@andrewnewton2246]

To be fair, Paul Von Lettow-Vorbeck fought a pretty courageous war in East Africa during the First World War, even surrendering after the armistice and once allied with the bees to to defeat Entente forces (the Battle of the Bees).

[@cryptocsguy9282]

@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 Prussia did have a war with Austria Hungary over the German lands which is why it was only under Hitler in 1938 that Austria and Germany united , dunno about the German speaking portions of Switzerland

[@Rusty_Gold85]

If Baudin actually survived after seeing Australia , and got back to see Napoleon things could've been different . Also 2 french ships landed in Port Jackson Bay a few days after the First Fleet had started camping but they disappeared in a storm heading home 1788 and were only re discovered in 2018. The Mutiny on the Bounty story had a very close encounter when the Royal Navy was sent to find the mutineers and missed their wreckage by weeks or ignored them

[@VanillaMacaron551]

Some French sailors "stayed with" - can't think of how else to put it - with Tasmanians for about 6 months in the 1770s. An account I read said they both adopted some culinary practises of the other.

[@what_theactual1984]

2:09 I love how Germany just rises out of the sea

[@scott2452]

A good summary…may have been worth mentioning that the reason Hobart was chosen as the 2nd place to set up a colony was due to finding out it was actually an island and not subject to the original claim…something that probably would have been seized upon by France after the Baudin expedition

[@duskpede5146]

something i don't get about early australian colonisation is where tf did this idea that you can claim entire islands if you just find it first come from? i've never seen anyone talk about that in any other context, where they'res a lot of islands that got partitioned in history

[@zimriel]

@@duskpede5146 St Martin is the most bonkers example. The French and the Dutch split 84 sq km between them. WHY

[@WideJaxamilious]

Genuinely my favourite KZbin channel

[@HimadriRoy-ns5bv]

Beautiful

[@stephenmoore7122]

Liked the nice touch of the dutch east india company faulty map

[@rookie4582]

Shout out to Boogalywoogalie & the Mcwhopper. They are the two names I always remember at the end of the video.

[@joesomebody3365]

I've always heard about the convicts meme regarding Australia, but I hadn't considered that it also made colonizing the place less risky (since if they were lost, the govt wouldn't care). Thanks for another great video.

[@poojagaur41]

It's amazing

[@FighteroftheNightman]

This was so interesting even the 2nd time

[@cowcow0506]

Love that I’m watching this as I sit in a tent in the Australian outback. Impeccable timing as always

[@ekesandras1481]

Both the Dutch and the Portuguese were just around the corner on the island of Timor, but the Australian coast on the North of the continent didn't look very inviting, the region is still very scarcely populated until today. So they concentrated on their spice business with the tropical island North of Australia and never explored the much more inviting Southern and Southeastern coast.

[@KakumeiDev]

"ongoing event of freedom" got me rolling right there

[@buddylove2073]

Even Lex Luthor asked to be given Australia when Zod took over.

[@stargamer26665]

Your videos are amazing to watch

[@tcjacobi9275]

The map of Prussia on Australia is an act of GENIUS!

[@matthewrouge]

Nice!

[@comicsanslover]

we do this in history EVERY YEAR and i still watched this video