Back in the Day: first colonists arrive in Australia

January 18, 1788 HMS Supply the first of 11 ships carrying British seamen and convicts destined to colonise Australia, arrive in Botany Bay in Sydney (New South Wales). Aboard the ships, collectively called the First Fleet, were around 1,500 people – half of them convicted criminals, and seven of whom had been born on the eight-month voyage from Portsmouth, England. Captain James Cook had landed at Botany Bay (which Cook named because of its abundant plants) seventeen years earlier in 1770 and had recommended the site as an ideal location to start colonising Australia. But Captain Arthur Phillip, the commander of the First Fleet, found the bay unsuitable for settlement and instead ordered his ships and passengers to the nearby Sydney Cove, where they landed on January 26. This date is still celebrated as Australia Day. Two more fleets of convict settlers arrived in Sydney Cove in 1790 and 1791, while the first ‘free immigrant settlers’ (non-convicts) reached the colony in 1793.

Also on January 18: Peru’s capital, Lima, is founded (1535); start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943); Washington DC mayor Marion Barry is arrested for possession of crack cocaine (1990).

Born on January 18: AA Milne (1882), Cary Grant (1904), Paul Keating (1944), Kevin Costner (1955), Thor Hushovd (1978).

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