From the search to identify the Great Southern Land, through the Colonial trials and tribulations, right up to the establishment of a dynamic modern Australia, Tony Robinson uncovers the key events and major influences that define Australia and Australians today. Tony travels through time and space and reveals a history that will surprise and sometimes challenge what we know about the land Down Under… For example the first Englishman to step ashore was not Captain James Cook but a pirate, a century earlier. And, if the evidence of an amateur Egyptologist is given any credence, the first person from the northern hemisphere may have visited Australia thousands of years before that! Tony retraces the steps of the earliest explorers, and delves into the harrowing stories of the early days of white settlement, finding out how the indigenous Australians responded to their invaders. Tony traces the turning points in Australia’s development and explores the influence of multi-culturalism and two world wars on Australia’s relationship to Britain - the Mother Country. He’ll discover that, in some ways Australia is more British than Britain. And in others, Australia is worlds apart.