What year was Australia founded?

Question

What year was Australia founded?

Answer 1

1788 unless your talking about federation which was 1901

Answer 2

1788

http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/timeline....

This is a site run by the Australian government which acknowledges that the indiginous people have lived here since 60,000 BC and that other people have visited the island prior to it being claimed by James Cook. He wasn't the first to discover Australia, he was just the first to 'take ownership' of it on behalf of the British Empire which is why that tends to be the official date of Australia's founding.

The continent of Australia has been inhabited for over 40,000 years by indigenous Australians. After sporadic visits by fishermen from the north and by European explorers and merchants starting in the 17th century, the eastern half of the continent was claimed by the British in 1770 and officially settled as the penal colony of New South Wales on 26 January 1788. As the population grew and new areas were explored, another five largely self-governing Crown Colonies were successively established over the course of the 19th century.

Those six colonies became a Federation in 1901.