Six years in the making, First Australians is the most ambitious television project to be undertaken on Indigenous Australia. Produced by Australia's leading Aboriginal filmmakers, the series chronicles the birth of a country and the collision of two worlds. It is an epic story that comes alive through the struggles of individuals, both black and white. Beautifully filmed, the series blends landscape, art, interviews and first-hand accounts with a vast archival collection to present the birth of contemporary Australia as never seen before, from the perspective of its first people - the first Australians.

More than 50,000 years in the making, comes the extraordinary story about the people, places and events that have shaped our country from the first inhabitants to the present day.

This is television's first comprehensive account of Australia's 150 year war. Between 1788 and 1938, thousands of whites and tens of thousands of blacks died in racial violence across the continent.

Waruwi is an Aboriginal girl looking after her Nana while the rest of her extended family is away from camp. It's just for a day but what a day it turns out to be.

Dan is on his second patrol to the Botany Bay area when he's asked to capture a native dog to take back to the colony's Governor. Only trouble is the dog in question - Lapa - belongs to Waruwi, the girl Dan befriended last time he was in the area.

In this History Channel world premiere, we present the epic story of Lachlan Macquarie, the man credited by many as 'the father of Australia'. Macquarie arrived in New South Wales in 1810 to rule over 10,000 criminals and colonists. How did a barefoot Scottish boy brought up in an earth floor hovel rise so high? Why did his life end in poverty and disgrace while the nation he nurtured grew and prospered? Using expert interviews, diaries and letters written by the characters themselves and contemporary narrative, this story will tell the uplifting and dramatic story of the 'father of Australia'.

Arthur Phillip is arguably the most important person in Australia's history. The commander of the First Fleet and the founding Governor of what would grow into Australia, Phillip is - according to prominent historian Jonathan King - this nation's equivalent to George Washington. And yet for such an influential person, so little is widely known about Arthur Phillip. Who was this man, what did he do before the First Fleet, and why did he accept the enormous challenge of sailing half way around the globe to found a new colony largely populated by Britain's cast-offs and criminals?

1814. The notorious British penal colony Van Diemen's Land has dissolved into chaos. Outlaws roaming the wilderness have pushed the colonial government to breaking point. Driven by loyalty and hatred for those he once served, English convict Michael Howe and an Aboriginal girl called Mary, turn a small band of desperate escapees, deserters and natives into a fearsome guerrilla army.

Having fulfilled his Admiralty brief Captain James Cook opted to tale the long way back to Britain so he could chart the East Coast of Australia and explore the mysterious land. The Aboriginal people showed more caution than their Polynesian counterparts upon the Endeavour's arrival seemingly indifferent to the strangers and wishing them gone. This understandable reticence was misinterpreted and later led to the myth of Terra Nullius Sam travels from Botany Bay up the east coast to Cooktown, learning about a country that far from being nobodies' land was comprehensively inhabited by a well-established culture.

Historian Michael Cathcart tells the epic story of how the colourful characters of early colonial Australia transformed a penal settlement into a land with rights and opportunity in a mere 40 years. This sweeping two-part dramatised documentary covers formative events in Australia's history, including the Rum Rebellion and early court cases which established independence and civil rights for all settlers.

From the first sighting by a wayward buccaneer in 1688, all the way through to the Sydney Olympics, Australia has been influenced by many cultures. Now Tony Robinson brings his distinctive passion for storytelling and discovery to reveal some astonishing quirks of history on the island continent. The characters who left their fingerprints on Australia's formative years were predominantly English and Irish. Nonetheless. Tony will also reveal some surprising and controversial stories of the settlers and un-settlers from other countries (Austria, France, Israel, Germany and more): the rebels, ratbags and revolutionaries who in some small way contributed to the birth of a nation. Alternative title: Tony Robinson Explores Australia.

Eighty years before Captain James Cook was born Europeans had already visited our shores, including Willem Janszoon. We take another look at who really discovered Australia.

We look at the history behind Australia Day and why it's marked on January 26. We learn that not everyone is happy about it. We also find out about the HMS Endeavour, the ship that brought Captain Cook to Australia.

A documentary that explores the events that led up to January 26, 1988. A grassroots mobilisation of communities throughout Australia gathered in Sydney proclaiming, White Australia had a Black History.

A documentary that looks at the bicentenary of Australia and the impact the first fleet had 200 years earlier.

In Sydney in December 1838, seven men stand accused of the mass killing of a group of unarmed Aborigines. The massacre of about 30 Wirrayaraay people at Myall Creek was the culmination of a series of conflicts between settlers and Aborigines in the Liverpool Plains region of NSW. The men responsible for the massacre included freed and assigned convicts who had spent a day unsuccessfully pursuing a group of Aborigines. When they came to Henry Dangar's Myall Creek Station, they discovered a group of Wirrayaraay who they rounded up and tied together. The Aborigines were then led off and massacred.

Lizzie O’Shea explains that Australia was considered by the first fleet to be terra nullius. Essentially, that means nobody had claimed ownership of the land. But of course people had been living in Australia for thousands of years. She introduces the Mabo case, and its key players. Lizzie talks with Bryan Keon-Cohen QC, who worked on the Mabo case which progressed slowly through the courts for ten years. One of the many problems that the team had to overcome was that of hearsay evidence. Indigenous communities rarely used written documents, and so ownership of land is passed down by telling the person what they owned. In our courts, that becomes hearsay, and does not carry as much weight as a written document. Professor Larissa Behrendt talks about finding out about Mabo as a law student. She compares it to what was happening in Canada around the same time. Lizzie O’Shea wraps up by reminding us that courts are bound to follow precedent but can occasionally radically change how law is interpreted, as they did with Mabo. Find curriculum links at http://legalbriefs.com.au