Australia did not exist before 26 January 1788 - Part 1: The Voyage Out (Revised 2024)

Part 1: The Voyage Out
This claim sounds absurd until one considers what a nation is. I unpack the concept of nation in two parts. Part 1 provides a brief account of the expeditions that searched for the mythical Land of the South and the eventual discovery of a continental mass below New Guinea and the Indonesian islands. It was Captain James Cook’s crucial voyages of discovery (1769-70) that gave definitive form to the continental mass and the islands close by. After the British government decided to establish a settlement on the continent now named New Holland, a fleet of 11 ships set sail for Botany Bay in what Cook had named New South Wales. Captain Arthur Phillip, the First Fleet's Leader, rejected Botany Bay as a place suitable for settlement. After some reconnoitring, he chose a cove in Port Jackson. Part 2 describes the process of settlement.

Text for the presentation can be found here:
http://www.gerardcharleswilson.com/australia-did-not-exist-before-26-january-1788/

My essay, 'Edmund Burke on What it Means to be a People', should be read with my two-part presentation, Australia did not exist before 26 January 1788.
http://www.gerardcharleswilson.com/edmund-burke-on-what-it-means-to-be-people/