The Eureka Stockade was a miners' revolt in 1854 in Victoria, Australia, against the officials supervising the gold-mining regions of Ballarat. The roots of the Eureka Stockade uprising lay in the inability of a fledgling colonial government to cope with the new demographics of the colony. It is to Australian history what the storming of the Bastille is to French history and the Battle of the Alamo is to American history. Although the revolt failed, it was a watershed event in Australian politics, and is often characterised as the nation's "Birth of Democracy". (more...)
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