AUSTRALIA

Read the text about Australia. Say when and how the Australian continent was discovered by Europeans. Use a dictionary when necessary.

      Australia is a large country lying between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
     Australia is an island, like Britain, but unlike Britain it is vast. It is, in fact, nearly twenty-five times as large as the British Isles.
      Most of Australia is a semi-desert. People cannot live where there is no water, and so most of the people in Australia live in the richer south-east.
      The first Australian people were the dark-skinned Aborigines, and though the coming of the white settlers destroyed their tribal lives, some sixty thousand still survive in Australia today. They account for about 1% (percent) of the population. They may be found in the inland areas of the country. Some live in reservations , others work as stockmen, shepherds and cattle drivers. Some live in modern cities but it is not really easy for them. They have to fight for their rights.
      The first Europeans to land in this country were Dutch sailors who were blown off their course across the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth century. They were not impressed by what they found. It remained for Captain Cook, an Englishman, who arrived in 1770 to notice the possibilities of the new country. He hoisted the British Flag, and Australia was British.
      Though Cook was warmly congratulated on his discovery, nothing was done about it until after the American Revolution when royalists', who had to leave the United States, appealed to the British Colonial Office for new colonies, in which to settle, The British Government needed a place to send British prisoners, too. And Captain Cook's discovery was remembered. Thus it was that over 1,000 people, 850 of them convicts, set sail in 1787 to start the first European colony in Australia.
      The national holiday, Australia Day, is now celebrated on or near January 26th in memory of the landing of the British in 1788. Explorers followed, and though they met with great hardships, they discovered good, rich places to live in, they found minerals, they began to build new settlements. The young country grew very fast.
      Today Australia is an independent federative state consisting of 6 states and 2 territories. It is a member of the Commonwealth headed by the British Queen.
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1) royalist - роялист, приверженец королевской власти; зд. противник независимости США; настроенный пробритански.



Answer the questions on the text:
1 Who were the first of the Europeans to land in Australia?
2 How did Australia become British?
3 Who are the natives of the Australian continent?
4 In what part of Australia do the majority of the people live? Why?
5 What holiday is celebrated in Australia in memory of the landing of the British in 1788?