1900 The United States annexes Eastern Samoa.

1901 The Commonwealth of Australia comes into being at a ceremony in Sydney's Centennial Park.

1901 The first Australian government, under the leadership of Edmund Barton, is sworn in by the Governor-General, the Earl of Hopetoun.

1901 Australia's Immigration Restriction Act requires would-be migrants to pass a dictation test in a European language chosen by the examiner.

1901 Wheat breeder William Farrer releases a high-yield, drought resistant wheat strain named Federation.

1901 Australian Lieutenant Henry "Breaker" Morant is sentenced to death in Pretoria for summarily executing unarmed Boer prisoners.

1901 The Cook Islands are annexed by New Zealand.

1902 Tasmanian stationery company Birchall's develops note pads.

1902 First transatlantic telegraph cable links Vancouver, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia.

1903 Victoria is first Australian state to admit women to practice law.

1906 The Papua Act gives Australia control over British New Guinea.

1906 The world's first lifesaving club is formed at Bondi Beach, Sydney. A reel, line and belt system invented by Lyster Ormsby helps rescue future aviator Charles Kingsford Smith.

1906 One of the world's first feature films, The Story of the Kelly Gang, opens in Melbourne.

1907 The U.K. promotes the colony of New Zealand to a dominion.

1907 The Australian industrial court lays down the minimum "living wage" standard in the Harvester judgment.

1907 Australian Norman Brookes becomes the first non-Briton to win the Wimbledon Singles tennis crown and, with New Zealand's Anthony Wilding, wins the region's first Davis Cup.

1908 Dorothea MacKellar's My Country is published as Core of My Heart in the London Spectator.

1909 Australian scientists Douglas Mawson and Edgeworth David and Scottish-born Alistair Forbes Mackay locate the South Magnetic Pole and claim the region for Britain.

1912 Irish-born journalist and amateur anthropologist Daisy Bates is made honorary protector of an Aboriginal tribe at Eucla, South Australia.

1915 Australian and New Zealand (Anzac) troops land on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.

1915 The Broken Hill Proprietary Co Ltd (BHP) opens first steelworks in Newcastle, NSW. It closes in 1999.

1917 In Sydney, 300,000 view coffin of boxer Les Darcy.

1918 Northern Territory Aboriginals Ordinance gives the Chief Protector discretion to take Aboriginal people into "care and custody".

1918 Global influenza epidemic hits New Zealand, killing more than 6,500 people.

1918 Painter Norman Lindsay's children's classic The Magic Pudding is published.

Chapter 2