For many years the rugged Blue Mountains blocked western expansion of the Sydney settlement. Discovery of a passage over the mountains in 1813 opened the way for inland exploration. Settlements were established in Hobart, Tasmania in 1803; on the Brisbane River, Queensland in 1824; on the Swan River, Western Australia in 1829; on Port Phillip Bay, Victoria in 1835; and on Gulf St Vincent, South Australia in 1836. The capital cities of Australia's five states have grown from those sites. The Aboriginals were pushed off their land by violence, and their traditional culture only survived in desert and jungle areas. In 1900, Queen Victoria proclaimed Australia as an independent member of the British empire with dominion status.

The shoot-out at the Glenrowan Inn has become part of Australian 19th century folklore. Living conditions were hard on the Australian frontier, and there was little government control. On the night of Sunday June 27, 1880 the gang of Ned Kelly, the notorious "bushranger" or outlaw, was tracked to the small village of Glenrowan.

Early the next morning, police arrived. Kelly, looking for all the world like a medieval knight, wore a heavy steel helmet that enclosed his head, and body armour to protect himself from police bullets. Eventually 50 police surrounded the hotel where the Kelly Gang held out, but even though wounded, Kelly fought on. Then two gang members were killed, and another wounded. The hotel was set on fire and Kelly was finally captured after he was shot in the legs. He was tried, found guilty and hung.

Today some see Kelly as a kind of Robin Hood, while others say he was just a violent murderer and thief. Kelly himself said, "If my lips teach the public that men are made mad by bad treatment, and if the police are taught that they may exasperate to madness men they persecute and ill treat, my life will not be entirely thrown away."

Over time, the Maori people of New Zealand evolved a culture sustained by agriculture and hunting. They had a complex social structure of tribes, sub-tribes and clans, and a stratified society made up of nobility, priestly and slave classes. Family relationships and blood lines, whakapapa, was paramount as it delineated origins and status.

Land was held communally, with each tribe and sub-tribe having a marae (meeting place where the tribe's ancestral spirits resided) and often living in a fortified village or pa. Intricate tattooing was frequently sported, with men of noble rank being heavily tattooed from face to feet (women wore only a facial tattoo on the chin). Maori history was not recorded using the written word; instead, it was kept in long, very specific and highly stylized songs and chants. The Maori were a warlike people with frequent battles between the various clans. The introduction of European firearms made these wars more destructive, however.

The British military officers and civilian officials who arrived after the treaty of Waitangi in 1840 were not treated with hostility at first. But the large numbers of

European settlers that arrived, many displaced by the industrialization of the British economy, caused tension. As well there was mutual confusion about what was actually meant by the 1840 treaty. The British viewed it as a Maori surrender, while the Maori saw it as nothing more than an agreement of friendship between equals.

The demand for land by arriving settlers and the reluctance of the Maori to sell sparked a series of skirmishes which escalated into the Maori Wars (1860-1865). Pitted against superior numbers and firepower, the Maori eventually succumbed, some holding out to the last in their fortified villages. The defeat led to widespread land confiscation by the British administration. The colony of New Zealand gained dominion status a few years after Australia in 1907.