Article: Western Australian history--the next assignments: address to the history council of Western Australia.(HISTORICAL PRACTICE)

When Pope Alexander VI in 1494 divided the world between Portuguese and Spanish spheres of influence he can never have imagined that he was creating Western Australia. By placing the dividing line of longitude at a point which would give Brazil to Portugal he inadvertently ensured that the western third of the then unknown Australian continent would lie in the Portuguese zone while the rest went to Spain. Three centuries later when the British asserted sovereignty over Australia they at first laid claim only to the former Spanish sphere of influence, at first east of longitude 135 and subsequently as far as the 'Pope's line' at longitude 129 degrees. It has been suggested ...

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