Australia Day

Australia Day is an official national holiday celebrated annually on 26 January. It also ends the Summer break for students. It commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788. The fleet carried convicts, charged in England with what we would regard as petty crimes (e.g. stealing a loaf of bread), who were deported to provide slave labour in the colonies. It took over a hundred years to actual form a country. On January 1, 1901 the Commonwealth of Australia was formed by federating the numerous colonies into a nation.