9 vessels including the HMS Supply departed England for 'the land beyond the seas', Australia. With 759 convicts on board, along with Marine guards their families and a handful of civil officers.

1803

The first British settlement on the island was made at Risdon in 1803 when lientanit John Bow landed with about 50 settlers, crew, soldiers and convicts. The site was abandoned and in 1804 Lieutenant David Collins established a settlement at Hobart in February of that year. The colony of Van Diemen's Land was established in 1825 and officially became known as Tasmania in 1856.

This drawing was an artists impression of the penial settlement at Port Arthur, in Van Diemen's Land.

1800-1853

From the early 1800s to 1853 tens of thousands of convicts suffered penal transportation (known simply as "transportation"), Van Diemen's Land was the primary penal colony in Australia during this time. Following the suspension of transportation to New South Wales, all transported convicts were sent to Van Diemen's Land. In total, some 75,000 convicts were transported to Van Diemen's Land, or about 40% of all convicts sent to Australia.

• Abel Janszoon Tasman. Originally, he named it "Van Diemen's Land", after the Governor of Batavia, Antony Van Diemen.

1. Who discovered Van Diemen's Land - WikiAnswers

2. Timeline: Important dates in Tasmanian history..

The convicts on Van Diemen's Land where never really chained up because they thought the convicts couldn't get away since they where on an island.

Van Diemen’s Land was valuable to the British for timber and whaling.

They also decided that it was remote enough to be used as a penal colony for hardened criminals. Over a fifty-year period 74,000 convicts were shipped to the island.

Van demons land (AKA Tasmania) was the second colony to unite with NSW.

In the second half of the 1800s there were six British colonies in Australia – New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. A popular movement began to join the separate colonies, to create a federation, to form a new and more economically powerful nation. As with all change, it had its supporters and its opponents, and the debate and details took many years to work out. However, on 1 January 1901 the Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed. Tasmania was one of the six states of the new nation.

When transportation of convicts to the island ended in 1853, its name was changed to Tasmania in honour of Able Tasman. This was done to recreate the colony, giving it a fresh start and to help with removing the taint of its convict past.

The thylacine looked like a large, long dog, with stripes, a heavy stiff tail and a big head. Its scientific name, Thylacinus cynocephalus, means pouched dog with a wolf's head. Fully grown, it measured about 180 cm (6 ft) from nose to tail tip, stood about 58 cm (2 ft) high at the shoulder and weighed up to 30 kg. The short, soft fur was brown except for 13 - 20 dark brown-black stripes that extended from the base of the tail to almost the shoulders. The stiff tail became thicker towards the base and appeared to merge with the body.