Europeans began exploration of Australia in the 17th century, approximately 40,000 years after Aboriginal settlers arrived there from Southeast Asia. In 1770, Capt. James Cook claimed the land for Great Britain – at that time there were perhaps one million Aborigines in Australia. In the 18th century, the threat of a French-style revolution loomed large in Britain. To prevent martyrdom of dissidents, England exiled its political rebels to America, then Australia. Along with the exiles, England also exported the 'undesirables' to be the cheap labor force of the new colonies. The undesirables included homeless children, prostitutes, poachers, pickpockets, alcoholics, vagrants and ethnic people. In all, the process, called the convict system, lasted for 80 years.

Six colonies were created in the late 18th and 19th centuries; they federated and became the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The new country was able to take advantage of its natural resources in order to rapidly develop its agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II. Long-term concerns include pollution, particularly depletion of the ozone layer, and management and conservation of coastal areas, especially the Great Barrier Reef. Australia is now a democratic, federal-state system recognizing the British monarch as sovereign.