BACKGROUND
 From the earliest white settlement at the end of the 18th century, Australians have striven to celebrate a national day, and in so doing, define what it means to be Australian. January 26 has traditionally marked the landing of Captain Arthur Phillip at Port Jackson in present-day Sydney, thereby claiming Australia for the British Empire. Early settlers, perhaps naturally, marked the anniversary. Australia Day has evolved from a small commemorative New South Wales holiday into a major national celebration. Though it has often been criticised, it remains the most inclusive celebration of a national day in Australia, expressing the national diversity which has become such an important part of the Australian national character. Australia Day today celebrates diversity and tolerance in Australian society.
Source: http://www.australiaday.com.au/studentresources/history.aspx
1606
 The first records of European mariners sailing into 'Australian' waters occurs around 1606, and includes their observations of the land known as Terra Australis Incognita (unknown southern land). The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutchman, Willem Janszoon.
Between 1606 and 1770, an estimated 54 European ships from a range of nations made contact. Many of these were merchant ships from the Dutch East Indies Company and included the ships of Abel Tasman. Tasman charted parts of the north, west and south coasts of Australia which was then known as New Holland.
Source: http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/australianhistory/
1788 to 1888
The fledgling colony very soon began to mark the anniversary of 26 January 1788 with formal dinners and informal celebrations. Manning Clark notes that on 26 January 1808, the 'anniversary of the foundation of the colony' was observed in the traditional manner with 'drinking and merriment'. John Macarthur senior had ensured his soldiers were amply supplied with liquor, bonfires were blazing and private houses illuminated.
Source: http://www.australiaday.com.au/studentresources/history.aspx
 Governor Lachlan Macquarie, made the thirtieth anniversary of the day in 1818 a public holiday, thirty guns counting out the years of British civilization, a tradition Macquarie's successors continued.
In 1826 at the centre of the anniversary dinner, 'Australia' a new word for the continent, entered the list of toasts. The term, recommended in his Voyage to Terra Australis in 1814 by Matthew Flinders, the skilful circumnavigator of the continent in 1801-03, and proposed by Macquarie to a reluctant British government in 1817, was taken up in Australia, especially by emancipists. The most famous of them, William Charles Wentworth with a fellow barrister had established the colony's first uncensored newspaper, the Australian, in 1824.
So strongly did some emancipists feel about being Australian that the anniversary dinner in 1837 was for only the Australian-born (Figure 1). Wentworth, invited to chair the dinner, declined, disapproving of this new development. Having become a wealthy landowner and squatter, he found that he had more in common with his former enemies, the exclusives, than his supporters who pressed for wider rather than narrower voting rights in discussions about political reform. That year the celebration widened with the first Sydney Regatta, the beginning of a new tradition — one which still continues today.
Source: http://www.australiaday.org.au/experience/page76.asp
Initially, relations between the explorers and the Aboriginal inhabitants were generally hospitable and based on understanding the terms of trading for food, water, axes, cloth and artefacts, a relationship encouraged by Governor Phillip. These relations became hostile as Aborigines realised that the land and resources upon which they depended and the order of their life were seriously disrupted by the on-going presence of the colonisers. Between 1790 and 1810, clans people of the Eora group in the Sydney area, led by Pemulwuy of the Bidjigal clan, undertook a campaign of resistance against the English colonisers in a series of attacks.
.... The question of land ownership by Indigenous people was not dealt with by the colonisers until the mid-1830s. In 1835, John Batman signed two 'treaties' with Kulin people to 'purchase' 600,000 acres of land between what is now Melbourne and the Bellarine Peninsula. In response to these treaties and other arrangements between free settlers and Indigenous inhabitants, such as around Camden, the NSW Governor, Sir Richard Bourke issued a proclamation. Bourke's proclamation established the notion that the land belonged to no-one prior to the British crown taking possession.
To effectively over-ride the legitimacy of the 'Batman treaty' the British Colonial Office felt the need to issue another Proclamation. The Colonial Office proclamation stated that people found in possession of land without the authority of the government would be considered trespassers. This was despite and because many other people, including a report to the House of Commons in 1837, recognised that Aboriginal occupants had rights in land. Nevertheless, the law in New South Wales variously applied the principles expressed in Bourke's proclamation. This would not change until the Australian High Court's decision in the Mabo Case in 1992.
Source: http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/australianhistory/
1888 - Representatives from Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and New Zealand joined NSW leaders in Sydney to celebrate the Centenary. What had begun as a NSW anniversary was becoming an Australian one. The day was known as Anniversary or Foundation Day
Source: http://www.australiaday.vic.gov.au/history_chronology.asp
By the centenary of Phillip's landing in 1888, Australia's population numbered almost three million and many changes had taken place over the previous fifty years. Gold had been discovered in the 1850s bringing great wealth and immigration, and New South Wales had become self-governing in 1854.
While this wealth and prosperity was certainly not equally spread - the incoming NSW government of 1886 had inherited severe financial problems and over eleven thousand 'centennial parcels' of rations were distributed to Sydney's poor on 26 January 1888 - the first centenary of white settlement was celebrated with great enthusiasm.
With the exception of Adelaide, all colonial capitals had declared Anniversary Day 1888 a public holiday and celebrations took place throughout the colonies. Ceremonies, parades, exhibitions, fireworks, banquets, church services and regattas were commonplace and 50,000 people watched the Governor Lord Carrington unveil a statue in honour of Queen Victoria ... A description of the unveiling of Queen Victoria's statue included the comment 'the mood was British, the crowd was Australian'.
Source: http://www.australiaday.com.au/studentresources/history.aspx
In 1871 the Australian Natives' Association had been formed in Victoria. This was the first Australian Friendly Society and its motto was Advance Australia. The group, which had particular influence in the period between the 1890s to around 1914, had strong nationalistic aspirations and its members included Edmund Barton (to become our first Prime Minister), Alfred Deakin (Australia's second Prime Minister) and Sir Isaac Isaacs (our first Australian-born Governor-General). The ANA provided sickness, medical and funeral cover.
Source: http://www.australiaday.com.au/studentresources/history.aspx
Since 1901
Since 1901, when Australia became a federation of the six colonies, the landing of the First Fleet at Camp Cove has evolved from a small commemorative New South Wales holiday into a major national celebration, recognised as Australia Day. From 1994 all states and territories agreed to celebrate Australia Day on the actual day.
For many Indigenous Australians however, 26 January is not a day of celebration but one of mourning and protest. On the morning of the 26 January for the 1938 sesquicentennial (150th) celebrations, Aboriginal activists met to hold a 'Day of Mourning' conference aimed at securing national citizenship and equal status for Aborigines. Citizenship rights for all Aborigines were recognised following a referendum on the issue in 1967. In an attempt to heal some of the pain of Australia's past, there is now an advanced Reconciliation movement.
http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/australianhistory/
1984
Australians ceased to be British subjects. Advance Australia Fair replaced God Save the Queen as the national anthem..
1994
Celebrating Australia Day on 26 January became established. The Australian of the Year Award presentations began alternating between Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane.
2004
The presentation of Australia of the Year Awards became fixed in Canberra.
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Australia Day 