FOR KING AND CONVICTS Marines raise the Union flag in Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, marking both the British occupation of Australia, and the foundation of the continent’s first penal colony
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TRANSPORTED TO AUSTRALIA: THE FIRST FLEET
During the height of the antipodean summer of 1788, 11 ships weighed anchor beside an alien land at the bottom of the planet. They intended to set up a new colony, built on the forced labour of convicts. A further 806 ships, carrying 162,000 prisoners, would follow in their wake over the next 79 years, in one of the biggest feats of forced human migration ever seen outside of commercial slavery.