A Brief History of Sydney

Like the history of the United States, the history of Australia is fairly short, as it was unknown to western nations until the seventeenth century. Due to a scarcity of written records, it is hard to determine how long aboriginal peoples had been living in the Sydney area, but current estimates range from 7,000 to 20,000 years. However, when James Cook charted the Australian coastline in the 1770, the history of Australia in general and Sydney in particular greatly accelerated.

Globe of planet Earth with Australia shown.

Duet to the American revolution, Great Britain began to use Australia as a prison colony for convicts. On January 26th, 1788, the settlement of Sydney was founded and named in honor of Thomas Townshend, the Baron Sydney who eventually became the British Secretary of State. By 1842, Sydney was firmly established as the leading city of the new continent, and the discovery of gold in 1852 caused a massive influx of residents in a Gold Rush similar to the famous California Gold Rush in America. In 1861 the population of Sydney was 56,000, in 1881 it was 221,000, and by 1901 it was an astounding 481,000.

Sydney has become increasingly involved in world affairs, particular during World War II. Australia entered the war on the side of the Allies in 1939 and fought in campaigns in North Africa, Europe, and the Pacific. When Japanese submarines entered Sydney harbor and attacked the HMAS Kuttabul, killing several Australian and British citizens, the focus of the Australian military shifted almost exclusively to the Pacific. Almost a million Australians fought in the war, with over 50,000 casualties.

Today, Sydney is known as one of the premiere tourist destinations in the world. In 1973, the world-famous Sydney Opera House opened its doors, and it has subsequently become renowned for its stellar acoustics and revolutionary architectural design. In 2000, Sydney hosted the Olympic Games, cementing itself as a world class city of the new millennium.