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Listed under:  History  >  World history  >  Australian history
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Landmarks: people and places across Australia

This resource features the Landmarks gallery, which traces a broad history of Australia since British colonisation in the late 18th century. The exhibition explores ten big themes in the country's past through the stories of Australian places and the people who have lived there. It examines how people have engaged with ...

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Victorian Heritage Database

This is a rich, interactive resource that lists Victoria’s most significant heritage: places, objects, shipwrecks and archaeological sites. It has four main sections: Introduction; Explore heritage map; Recommended tours; and Timeline browser. The Explore heritage map searches for sites and provides information and images ...

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The 'Southern Cross' reaches Sydney, 1928

This is a black-and-white photograph of the 'Southern Cross' biplane arriving in Sydney and being greeted by reporters and photographers and a large contingent of police after the record-breaking flight of Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew across the Pacific. Signed portraits of the crew are superimposed upon the photograph, ...

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'Discussing the site at Tumut', 1902

This is a black-and-white photograph, measuring 18.4 cm x 24.0 cm, taken in 1902 during a tour of inspection by senators from the Federal Parliament of possible sites for the proposed federal capital. Senators and local dignitaries are posing in groups on a hillside, ostensibly discussing the merits of a site at Tumut in ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. I', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.8 cm x 24.4 cm showing gently undulating grassland and narrow bands of trees. A group of cows is being herded by a mounted man to a lower area behind a hill, possibly towards a small group of huts that can be glimpsed in the middle ground. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. II', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 16 cm x 24.5 cm showing the Victorian squatting runs Challicum and Yalla-y-poora from a south-south-westerly viewpoint. In the midground is the yellow grassland of the Fiery Creek plains, gum trees dot the countryside and the distant bluish mountain is Mount Weejort. Two emus are shown in ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. V', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 16.6 cm x 25.7 cm showing a mounted man, possibly the squatter Harry Thomson. Two dogs run behind him as he rides along a meandering trail left by wagon wheels. Forests stretch away behind and native gums dot the Challicum Hills which rise out of the forest treetops. The artist, Duncan Cooper, ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. VI', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 17.2 cm x 26.2 cm showing the twin peaks of Mount Langi Ghiran rising behind the smaller tip of Conical Hill. Two distant mountains on the right are Ben Nevis and Mount Buangor. A camp of Indigenous Djapwurrong people, consisting of two bark and wood dwellings, is situated on the edge of ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. VIII', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.8 cm x 24 cm showing the vast, yellowing Challicum plains with grassfires burning smokily in the distance. A flock of sheep is being watched by a shepherd and dog. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting as the sixteenth watercolour in his field sketchbook and inscribed the title ...

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'Panorama of Challicum, No. IX', c1850

This is a watercolour measuring 15.7 cm x 24.3 cm showing the vast yellow-and-green Challicum plains. In the distance a flock of sheep, watched by a shepherd and dog, is moving into temporary wooden yards. Among gum trees, to the right of the yard, is the homestead. The artist, Duncan Cooper, included this painting as the ...

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John Forrest's 1874 expedition

This is a 52.5 cm x 69 cm, black-and-white photoengraving, of John and Alexander Forrest, James Sweeney, James Kennedy, Tommy Windich and Tommy Pierre with their horses after crossing the Great Victoria Desert in 1874. On the far right is the Overland Telegraph Line, about 120 kilometres north of Coober Pedy in South Australia. ...

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Collins Street, Melbourne, 1889

This is an 1889 hand-coloured 25 cm x 33.5 cm wood engraving of Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria, looking east from Elizabeth Street. The street is filled with activity - pedestrians are buying fruit and vegetables from a handcart, a boy is 'wearing' an advertising board and people are travelling by tram, wagon and on ...

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'Cobb and Co coach on the Sydney road', 1850s

This is a watercolour, measuring 16.2 cm x 25.2 cm, by the famous colonial artist Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-80). It shows a Cobb and Co coach travelling to Sydney, New South Wales, along a rough dirt road bounded by timber fences and open fields, with buildings (probably farmhouses) in the background. At least two horses ...

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'The claim disputed', c1852

This is a watercolour, measuring 19.4 cm x 25.4 cm, by Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-80), a famous colonial artist. It shows a well-dressed man - presumably the Gold Commissioner - arbitrating a dispute over a claim involving three diggers, probably on the Victorian gold fields. Two of the diggers are in animated discussion ...

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First pole on the Overland Telegraph, c1870

This is a black-and-white wood engraving of a drawing dating from about 1870 by Samuel Calvert (1828-1913). Probably set near Adelaide, South Australia, it depicts a group of men and women in mid-Victorian dress, circled around a rough-hewn telegraph pole, in a bush setting. The pole is being levered, using ropes, into ...

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Women stapling ration books, 1943

This is a sepia-toned photograph, taken in April 1943, of young women at the South Australian Government Printing Office using large machines to staple ration books.

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'Gold digging in Australia 1852: bad results'

This is the first of a pair of oval watercolours, measuring 20.2 cm x 26.4 cm, painted by Samuel Thomas Gill (1818-80), a famous colonial artist. It shows two gold miners sitting dejectedly beside their mine, probably on the Victorian gold fields. Behind the men is a windlass, as well as their wheelbarrow, pick and spade. ...

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Neck ornament, c1890s

This is an Aboriginal neck ornament from central Australia, believed to have been made in the late 1800s. It comprises two pairs of eaglehawk claws, connected with resin to a string made of human hair. The ornament is 43 cm long and 4 cm wide.

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Ceremonial headdress, c1921

This is a ceremonial headdress of the Wangkanguru (Wonkonguru) people, made at an Aboriginal settlement in the north-east of South Australia in about 1921. Its main features are three thick tassels made of rabbit-tail fur attached to string made of kangaroo fur and hair. It is 56 cm long and up to about 34 cm wide.

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Pacific Islander labourers in the Mackay District, late 1800s

This posed black-and-white photograph shows indentured Pacific Islanders by their grass hut homes, probably on a Mackay sugar plantation in Queensland. Some are seated on logs or rough timber benches and one woman can also be seen. They are dressed in Western-style clothes. More huts can be seen on the cleared rise in the ...