Are You an Australian History Expert?

The British Empire colonized the land and the peoples of territories, like North America and Tasmania, for several centuries. The British established mainland Australia in 1788.

Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman sighted New Zealand on Dec. 13, 1642. Tasman landed on Tasmania where aboriginal people, who had migrated from the mainland, had lived for 35,000 years.

Son of an English farmer, Captain James Cook sailed the high seas for many years in small wooden ships. One of Cook's letters to the British Admiralty, which chronicled the discovery of Australia among other events, was located in a mansion in Norfolk, England in 2002.

A steady influx of Chinese migrants at the time sparked the White Australia policy, which was the basis of the Immigration Restriction Act and the first piece of legislation passed by the new government. The policy served to curb immigration of Chinese and other targeted groups.

Van Diemen's Land was renamed Tasmania in 1856. Settlers brought the first dogs to the penal outpost in 1803 and 1804. The animals were excellent hunters, assisting the new convict settlers in securing food and other island necessities. The settlers had previously relied solely on imported goods.

Between 1916 and 1920, the United Kingdom purchased all 7.1 million bales of wool that Australia produced. The U.K. paid Australia 160 million pounds, sustaining the nation's wool industry that was the basis of its economy.

Botany Bay is considered Australia's birthplace. Captain James Cook first landed on Australia's east coast at Botany Bay in 1770. Captain Philip and his crew carried England's first group of prisoners through to Botany Bay on Jan. 18, 1788.

The land reform law was a reaction to Mabo v. Queensland (No, 2) for which the High Court of Australia recognized land interests of Australia's indigenous population. The Native Title Act of 1993 set guidelines for claiming native title.

Before its development, Canberra, Australia was a widespread "garden city" where residents found it difficult to travel from home to school, shopping centers and work due to limited transportation. The National Capital Development Commission lasted from 1958 until 1978.

A series of strikes occurred between 1946 and 1949 whereby hundreds of aboriginal farm workers in the Pilbara territory walked away from posts in their quest for independence and human rights. Other names for the event are "Great Stockman's Strike" and "Blackfellas' Eureka."

Sydney, Australia's largest city, hosted the 2000 Summer Olympic Games. Melbourne, Australia hosted all 1956 Summer Game events except for the equestrian portion, which was held in Stockholm, Sweden. Austrialia had imposed strict horse quarantine regulations at the time.

During the 1850s, 35 percent of Australia's Gross Domestic Product consisted of mining and exports of gold. The region experienced major mining discoveries in the 1880s and 1890s, when 50 percent of Australia's 10 percent mining GDP was from gold.

A British fleet of 11 ships that included 759 convicts, including 191 women and 13 of their children, departed Portsmouth, England in 1787 for a 36-week voyage to Australia. In 1803, the United Kingdom established Tasmania as a convict settlement.

A group of Australian miners revolted against the British government over taxation issues, ending in violence and bloodshed in the Victoria colony. Author Mark Twain called the battle, "a strike for liberty...It was the Barons and John over again...it was Concord and Lexington."

Anzac means Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The active-duty coalition soldiers joined Allied forces during a 1915 Gallipoli peninsula mission to secure Constantinople (Istanbul) and invade the Dardanelles.

Aborigines posed little threat to British land seizures. It is documented that early settlers regarded the indigenous as "savages," and the new migrants colonized the territories through vacuum domicilium, Latin for "empty lands," meaning no one is here so there is no need for treaties.

Until livestock was herded into the region in 1803, there was virtually none in many parts of colonial Australia, as only a few cattle and sheep accompanied the First Fleet to Sydney in 1788. The first sheep were primarily bred for meat before a lucrative wool industry was established subsequently.

Polish explorer Count Pawel Edmund Strzeliecki named the mountain after military genius and "Hero of Poland" Thaddeus Kosciuszko. The mountain peak sits in an Australian park also named after the statesman.

The remaining 160 Tasmanian aborigines were sent to live at Settlement Point on Flinders Island. But the plan did not prevent mistreatment of aborigines, and Australian colonial authorities then resorted to moving the 45 indigenous peoples who survived Settlement Point to Oyster Cove in Tasmania.

In 1932, Australia suffered the highest unemployment rate in the world. Since Australia's export economy was so dependent on Britain, Australia was economically devastated when Britain's economy flopped and capital assistance subsided.

Australia's six states joined politically and economically to form a free-trade union. By 1901, Australia, as well as New Zealand, had the highest per capita income in the world. Unlike European societies of that time, Australia's wealth was more evenly distributed.

The end of convict transports triggered a severe labor shortage in the Australian colonies. The United Kingdom relied heavily on the labor resources of Chinese workers. 2,566 indentured laborers from Xiamen were sent to New South Wales between 1845 and August 1852.

Between 1788 and 1819, the colonies were almost completely reliant on the British imperial government's aid, which came in the form of clothing and food. Colonies implemented minor taxation policies to help generate revenue that supplemented these resources.

Published in 1907, "Send Round the Hat" is literature that characterizes life in colonial Australia. Henry Lawson and his contemporary Banjo Paterson were known as Australian bush ballad writers.

The first of its kind and formed in 1943, the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion was a group of indigenous men of Australia who banded together to protect Australia's northern coast against the Japanese Imperial Army. Eight hundred and eighty men enlisted out of an available 890 able-bodied men.

Sir Robert Menzies, who was knighted in 1963, served as Australia's prime minister for 16 years, one month and eight days. In 2004, John Howard became Australia's second longest-serving prime minister.

Australia began systematic separation of aboriginal minors from their families in the 1880s. Today, approximately 100,000 Australians of aboriginal descent have no connection with their native clans or communities as a result of the now-banned practice.

The mid-1980s saw Australia's first wine industry boom. One of the nation's top agricultural industries, Australia's wine industry facilitates large-scale exports to United Kingdom, United States, Japan, Canada and China.

Melbourne's land expansions and building booms of the 1870s conjured the territory's nickname. An early gold-rush period in the region's early settlement years helped spark the economic surge.

The Australian gold rush of the 19th century saw the first major flood of Greek migrants in the region. By 1910, there were 900 immigrants in Australia. Australian census numbers from 2011 reflect a total of 99,938 Greek-born inhabitants in the country, half of which live in Melbourne.

The raids jolted Australia out of peacetime contentment during World War II. Some 240 people perished and hundreds were wounded during the raids. The bombing lasted 40 minutes and destroyed eight ships, including the USS Peary.

The North American-based Wesleyan Holiness Church began to emerge in Australia in large numbers after World War II. Several sects of moderate evangelical Christian reformists already had a strong presence in the country.

Julia Eileen Gillard was elected as Australia's Labor Prime Minister on June 24, 2010 and left office in 2013. Australia's first female Governor-General Quentin Bryce assumed her position on Sept. 5, 2008.

Between October 1798 and June 1799, Matthew Flinders and George Bass circumnavigated Tasmania. New South Wales governor Philip Gidley King named the principal island in the region after Flinders.

In 1993, Australian band "Midnight Oil" dedicated a folkloric tune to Truganini, who was one of the last full-blooded Tasmanians to survive. Truganini, of the Mangana tribe, died in 1876 and she is still regarded as a hero.