1.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
2.
1917
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As of the start of 1917, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923. Below, events of World War I have the WWI prefix, January 1 – The University of Oregon defeats the University of Pennsylvania 14–0 in U. S. college footballs 3rd Annual Rose Bowl Game. January 2 – The Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank, the cause was found to be inadequate signalling procedures. January 9 – WWI, The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Forces Desert Column at the Battle of Rafa. January 11 – Unknown saboteurs set off the Kingsland Explosion at Kingsland, January 16 – The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million. January 19 – Silvertown explosion, A blast at a factory in London kills 73. The resulting fire causes over £2,000,000 worth of damage, January 22 – WWI, President of the United States Woodrow Wilson calls for peace without victory in Germany. January 25 WWI, British armed merchantman SS Laurentic is sunk by mines off Lough Swilly with the loss of 354 of the 475 aboard, an anti-prostitution drive in San Francisco occurs and police close about 200 prostitution houses. January 26 – The sea defences at the English village of Hallsands are breached, leading to all, January 28 – The United States ends its search for Pancho Villa. January 30 – Pershings troops in Mexico begin withdrawing back to the United States and they reach Columbus, New Mexico February 5. February 1 – WWI, Atlantic U-boat Campaign, Germany announces its U-boats will resume unrestricted submarine warfare, February 3 – WWI, The United States severs diplomatic relations with Germany. February 5 – The new constitution of Mexico is adopted, February 13 Mata Hari is arrested in Paris for spying. WWI, Beginning of the Raid on Nekhl by units of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, February 21 – British troopship SS Mendi is accidentally rammed and sunk off the Isle of Wight, killing 646, mainly members of the South African Native Labour Corps. March 1 The U. S. government releases the text of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public, Japanese city of Ōmuta is founded by Hiroushi Miruku. March 2 – The enactment of the Jones Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship, march 4 Woodrow Wilson is sworn in for a second term as President of the United States. Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman member of the United States House of Representatives. March 7 – Livery Stable Blues, recorded with Dixie Jazz Band One Step on February 26 by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in the United States, becomes the first jazz recording commercially released, on August 17 the band records Tiger Rag. March 8 – The February Revolution begins in Russia, Women calling for bread in Petrograd start riots, the United States Senate adopts the cloture rule in order to limit filibusters
3.
Australian federal election, 1917
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Federal elections were held in Australia on 5 May 1917. All 75 seats in the House of Representatives and 18 of the 36 seats in the Senate were up for election, the incumbent Nationalist Party of Australia led by Prime Minister of Australia Billy Hughes defeated the opposition Australian Labor Party led by Frank Tudor. Hughes, at the time a member of the ALP, had become Prime Minister when Andrew Fisher retired in 1915, later that year, National Labor and the Liberals merged to form the Nationalist Party, with Hughes as leader and Cook as deputy leader. The election was fought in the aftermath of the 1916 plebiscite on conscription, the Nationalists won a decisive victory, securing the largest majority government since Federation. The ALP suffered an electoral swing against it, losing almost seven percent of its vote from 1914. The swing was magnified by the number of former Labor MPs who followed Hughes out of the party. Members in italics did not contest their seat at this election
