You’ve probably seen Australia on the news a lot lately. After all, the Olympics will be held in Sydney, Australia this September. But what else do you know about Australia? Have you ever thought about this island continent as anything other than a home for koalas and kangaroos?

Australia is the world’s smallest continent. And, because of its “down under” spot on the far south of the globe, it’s far from other countries. But even so, Australia has long been an exciting destination for explorers and traders.

The first people to explore and settle in Australia, the Aborigines, migrated there about 40,000 years ago from Southeast Asia. They came to Australia during a time of low seas, which made the long journey easier. But after the Aborigines’ arrival, it was thousands of years before any other people found their way to Australia.

Medieval Europeans believed that something like Australia must exist. The northern lands where they lived had to be balanced by an equal amount of land south of the equator, right? And so, even though they had never seen Australia, and didn’t even truly know if it existed, they decided there must be a great “Southland” on the other side of the world from them.

If you’ve followed the histories of some of the products the Boomerang Box has carried this year, you know that the 1600s and 1700s were times of much exploration for European traders. They were looking for gold, valuable spices, and other things they could trade. Portuguese traders explored India, and traded for spices and tea. Spanish traders crossed the Atlantic to North and South America. And Dutch traders, moving south from Asia, discovered that the “Southland” their maps had shown for so many years really did exist after all.

The Dutch found very little to trade in Australia, so they didn’t stay. In fact, the next settlement of Australia didn’t happen until 1788, when a group of British convicts was sent to Botany Bay, Australia, to start a colony. Why Australia? Well, it was seen as a very remote place, far from England. And, by the 1780s, after the Revolutionary War, Britain could no longer ship its convicts to America. So, Australia was the next place.

These European settlers didn’t find much to trade at first, except for rum. But they soon discovered the high-quality wool produced by Australian Merino sheep, and Australia quickly became the world’s major exporter of wool. Then, in 1850, just after gold was discovered in Alaska, gold was discovered in Australia too, and people hurried there hoping to make their fortune. These new settlers were not always good to their Aboriginal neighbors, who suffered the same fate as native peoples in other lands settled by Europeans.

Australia was ruled as a colony by Great Britain during the 1800s. But in 1901, Australia became an independent country. Australians continued to produce wool. In fact, Australia now produces one-fourth of the world’s wool each year. And Australia got a chance to shine on the world stage by hosting the Olympics — in Melbourne in 1956.

Today, Australia is home to people from many different countries. Australians trade actively with East and Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America. The Boomerang Box will soon be traveling to the deepwater port of Fremantle, Australia, carrying a load of goods from Hong Kong. Can you find Fremantle on a map? What Australian state is it part of? What is its weather like? What else can you learn about this “down under” country?

Check out past Trade Topics entries!