Commodore Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England with First Fleet, the name given to the eleven ships that leave England on May 13, 1787 to found the penal colony that will become the first European settlement in Australia.

The Fleet consists of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports, carrying between one thousand and fifteen hundred convicts, marines, seamen, civil officers and free people (accounts differ on the numbers), and a vast quantity of stores.