In 1788 Australia, selected as a penal colony for the British Empire, received her first transports, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip. Following an eight-month voyage, the ‘first fleet’ arrived in Botany Bay near modern-day Sydney on January 20th, and began unloading the convicts, along with animals and other cargo brought from England and the Cape.

The new colony faced an immediate problem, as Phillip saw that Botany Bay was incapable of sustaining it. He moved the entire colony to what is now Sydney, and despite bad harvests, disease, demotivated settlers and poor equipement, within a few years Phillip managed to establish a self-supporting community, at considerable cost to his own health.

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