Australian soccer player Sam Kerr
Credit: © FiledIMAGE/Shutterstock

If you’ve been following the World Cup, you have probably heard of Australian player Sam Kerr. The star striker returned from sitting out of the games due to a calf injury. Kerr joined the Matildas to defeat Denmark 2 to 0 on Monday, August 7th.

Sam Kerr is an Australian soccer star. Kerr, a striker, represented Australia in the FIFAWorld Cup in 2011, 2015, and 2019. FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football). FIFA is soccer’s world governing body. Soccer is called football in much of the world. In 2019, Kerr became the first Australian to score three goals, a feat known as a hat trick, in a World Cup match.

In 2008, Kerr played her first match in the W-League, the top Australian women’s soccer league, with Perth Glory FC in Western Australia. FC stands for football club. The W-League was renamed the A-League starting in 2022. In 2012, Kerr moved to Sydney FC, a W-League team from New South Wales. She helped Sydney FC win the 2012-2013 W-League championship before returning to Perth in 2014. Kerr also played in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), the top women’s professional soccer league in the United States. She made her NWSL debut in 2013. The Australian and U.S. leagues compete in different months of the year, enabling Kerr to play for both leagues.

In 2020, Kerr left the W-League and the NSWL and joined the Football Association (FA) Women’s Super League in England. With Chelsea FC Woman, a Super League team from London, she won multiple Super League titles and two FA Cups. She is the only female player to earn the Golden Boot, awarded to the top scorer, in three international soccer leagues: the A-League, the NSWL, and the FA Super League.

Samantha May Kerr was born on Sept. 10, 1993, in Fremantle, Western Australia. She grew up playing Australian Rules football. Her father and brother both played Australian Rules football in the Australian Football League (AFL). Kerr switched to soccer when she was around 12 years old.

At age 15, Kerr joined the Australian national women’s team, known as the Matildas. She played in her first international match in 2009. Kerr was named Young Australian of the Year in 2018. In 2022, she was awarded the Order of Australia. Kerr was named captain of the Matildas in 2019. She also represented Australia at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympic Games. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics were held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Melbourne’s skyline along the Yarra River.
Credit: © Rudy Balasko, Shutterstock

Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales, has been Australia’s most populous city since 1911. However, Melbourne has surpassed  in population for the first time in over a hundred years. Officials expanded Melbourne’s city limits to include the western suburb of Melton, which added enough people to overtake Sydney. According to the 2021 census, Melbourne now has 4,875,400 residents that call it home, only 18,700 more than Sydney recorded. Researchers say Melbourne’s rapid growth is due to international immigration. Melbourne is the capital city of Victoria. Melbourne is known for celebrating diversity, affordable living costs, and strong employment and education opportunities.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics includes surrounding suburbs in the population. In some definitions that exclude surrounding suburbs, Sydney remains the most populous city in Australia. However, Melbourne is projected to pass Sydney in all definitions by 2031. What a growth spurt!

Melbourne is a busy seaport on Port Phillip Bay, on the southern coast of the Australian mainland. Melbourne is one of the nation’s largest ports and Victoria’s commercial, financial, and industrial center. The discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851 boosted Melbourne’s economy and population, making it Australia’s fastest-growing and largest city.

Prospectors discovered gold in Victoria in 1851. Gold attracted many people and laid the foundation for economic growth. Before the discovery of gold, the population of Melbourne and its suburbs was about 29,000. By 1861, the population had reached nearly 140,000, and Melbourne had become Australia’s largest city.

Mining in Victoria declined in the 1860′s. But manufacturing, encouraged by tariffs (taxes on imported goods) and the growing local market, offset the decline. Melbourne’s growth continued. City officials constructed many public buildings and developed new suburbs. Railways extended wheat farming across the Wimmera River. Officials developed port facilities to handle increasing exports of wool and grain. Melbourne had become the commercial and financial capital of Australia. This period of intense growth ended in the 1890′s, and by 1911, Sydney surpassed Melbourne in size.

Melbourne is one of Australia’s most important cities, with contributions in such areas as the arts, business, and politics. Melbourne is home to the Australian Ballet, the Melbourne Theatre Company, the Malthouse Theatre, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and many other performing arts companies. Opera Australia performs in the city several months each year. Arts Centre Melbourne, south of the Yarra River, includes the State Theatre, the Playhouse, and Hamer Hall, a concert hall.

Melbourne is also noted for its major sporting events. Melbourne is the original home of Australian Rules football, a contact sport somewhat similar to rugby. The city hosts several major sporting events each year. They include the Australian Open tennis championship and the Australian Formula One Grand Prix. Melbourne also hosts Australia’s most popular horse race, the Melbourne Cup, held each year at Flemington Racecourse. The race day is a public holiday in the Melbourne metropolitan area, and the race is popular with viewers worldwide.

January 7, 2014

Australia experienced its hottest year on record in 2013, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology reported at the beginning of the year. Temperatures were 2.16 degrees Fahrenheit (1.2 degrees Celsius) above the long-term average, the warmest year since record keeping was begun in Australia in 1910. The world’s driest continent also had its hottest day, hottest month, hottest winter’s day, and hottest summer in 2013. The record-warm winter culminated in a series of devastating fires in and around Sydney, Australia’s largest city. The hotter-than-normal temperatures, which began late in 2012, were so extreme that the Bureau of Meteorology was forced to change its official weather forecasting map to include two new colors—deep purple and pink—to show areas with temperatures above 122 °F (50 °C).

According to the bureau, all but one of the last 10 years have been warmer than average. “The Australian region warming is very similar to that seen at the global scale, and the past year emphasizes that the warming trend continues,” concluded the authors of the bureau’s annual report. “Most of the warming has occurred since around 1950, and that’s consistent with the global pattern,” bureau meteorologist Neil Plummer stated in an Australian Broadcasting Company interview. He noted that figures from the Australian bureau, and other bureaus around the word, provide a “body of evidence that we’re all seeing a warming over Australia and a warming world.”

Australia is the driest continent. Its vast interior, often called the outback, consists mainly of deserts, such as the Great Victoria Desert (above), and dry grasslands. (© Peter Mead, Tom Stack & Associates)

Concurrently, a study by Australian scientists published in the journal Nature found that increasing levels of carbon dioxide are reducing the thickness of clouds over the oceans, which will, in turn, reduce their cooling impact. The scientists predicted that this effect will cause global temperature to rise by at least 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) by the end of this century–shockingly higher than an earlier calculation of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius).

Additional World Book articles:

• Bushfires in Australia
• Australia 2009 (a Back in Time article)
• Global warming 2012 (a Back in Time article)
• The Great Meltdown (a special report)
• Meltdown: Climate Change in the Arctic (a special report)

October 23, 2013

The Australian state of New South Wales is braced for another day of devastating bushfires. The commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service has urged people not to travel in various parts of the state due to conditions that are set to be “as bad as it gets.” Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons warned that today’s weather forecast—temperature in the mid to high 80′s °F (30′s °C), humidity down to 10 percent, and winds of 50 to 60 miles (80 to 100 kilometers) per hour—is worse than previously thought, making it the most dangerous day yet in the bushfire emergency that began last week.

Dozens of bushfires are burning to the north, south, and west of Sydney, and the city is wreathed in smoke. “You can smell smoke inside buildings,” National Public Radio correspondent Stuart Cohen reported yesterday, noting that health authorities were expecting a surge in cases of people with respiratory problems. Since the start of the bushfires, more than 200 homes have been destroyed, and wildlife experts believe that thousands of koalas, opossums, reptiles, and other animals have been killed. However, only one life has been lost in the disaster.

A dangerous wildfire in the Blue Mountain region was started by the Australian army testing explosives in a military training exercise. (World Book map)

Firefighters from three states are battling the fires through backburning—that is, starting a fire that burns in the opposite direction to the line of the advancing wildfire. Australian fire officials say the threat to the Blue Mountain area west of Sydney “has been averted” for today, but warn the crisis is far from over. In total, 73 fires are burning across the state, 29 of them out of control. Meteorologists note that the severity of the bushfires is due to extremely dry conditions following Australia’s hottest September on record.

Additional World Book articles:

• Hakea
• Australia 2009 (a Back in Time article)

January 30, 2013

Winds approaching 62 miles (100 kilometers) per hour blasted Sydney, Australia’s largest city, yesterday, driving huge swells onto Bondi Beach and drenching the center of the city.

Days of high winds, torrential rains, and powerful ocean swells along Australia’s east coast have left at least four people dead and thousands more displaced in the states of New South Wales and Queensland. According to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, the storm–the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Oswald–has shattered records in various parts of New South Wales, triggering flooding along hundreds of miles from north of Brisbane south to Sydney. State officials estimate that at least 23,000 people remain cut off by floodwaters. Massive flooding north of Brisbane forced the evacuation by military helicopter of approximately 1,000 people from the town of Bundaberg, where rapidly moving floodwater threatened to carry away entire buildings. The highest rainfall was recorded some 500 miles (800 kilometers) north of Brisbane, where 53.5 inches (136 centimeters) fell over the three-day period ending on January 27.

Massive flooding along Australia's eastern coast has extended from north of Brisbane south to Sydney. (World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc.)

The latest floods in Australia have come on top of a barrage of bizarre and destructive weather. Just two weeks ago, New South Wales and Queensland were in the grip of a searing heat wave that triggered dozens of enormous wildfires.

January 18, 2013

Sydney, Australia, is experiencing its hottest day on record, with temperatures reaching 114.4 °F (45.8 °C). The previous recorded high in Sydney–113.5 °F (45.3 °C)–was in January 1939. The heat has caused extensive damage to Sydney’s urban railway lines, causing delays to much of the network. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has advised Australians to “take the appropriate precautions to stay safe and monitor information from local emergency services as they work to protect lives and property.”

A record high of 104 °F (40 °C) set on January 8 prompted the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to add two new colors to its temperature charts to extend their range to 129 °F (54 °C) from the previous cap of 122 °F (50 °C). David Jones, manager of climate monitoring prediction at the Bureau of Meteorology, declared last week that Australia was undergoing the “largest heat event in the country’s recorded history.”

According to public safety officials, four months of record-breaking temperatures combined with widespread drought conditions and high winds have created “catastrophic” fire conditions along the heavily populated eastern and southeastern coasts of the country. These areas include Australia’s three largest cities, Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, as well as the capital, Canberra. A bushfire in Victoria state has left one man dead. He was found in his burnt-out vehicle outside the town of Seaton, which is 120 miles (200 kilometers) east of Melbourne. Firefighters continue to battle dozens of wildfires sparked by the intense heat in Victoria and New South Wales, and whole towns and sheep ranches are reportedly cut off  by fires and endangered. (A bushfire is an uncontrolled fire in bush areas, especially the Australian bush.) Very similar conditions on Feb. 7, 2009, came to be known as Black Saturday, during which wildfires in Victoria state left 173 people dead and caused $4.4 billion in damage.

Additional World Book articles:

• Celsius scale
• Fahrenheit scale
• Why Fires Need to Burn (a special report)
• Australia 2009 (a Back in Time article)

January 9, 2012

Temperatures in Australia topped 104 °F (40 °C) on January 8, and the mean national temperature climbed to the highest in history, breaking a record set just the day before, on January 7, reported the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The new record prompted meteorologists at the bureau to take the extraordinary step of adding two new colors to its temperature charts to extend their range to 129 °F (54 °C) from the previous cap of 122 °F (50 °C).

“If you look at yesterday, at Australia as a whole, it was the hottest day in our records going back to 1911,” noted David Jones, manager of climate monitoring prediction at the Bureau of Meteorology. “From this national perspective, one might say this is the largest heat event in the country’s recorded history.”

According to public safety officials, four months of record-breaking temperatures combined over the past week with widespread drought conditions and high winds have created “catastrophic” fire conditions along the heavily populated eastern and southeastern coasts of the country. These areas include Australia’s three largest cities, Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, as well as the capital, Canberra. Firefighters and emergency crews in the state of New South Wales are facing a highly dangerous situation battling 130 separate bushfires. (A bushfire is an uncontrolled fire in bush areas, especially the Australian bush.) Very similar conditions on Feb. 7, 2009, came to be known as Black Saturday, during which wildfires in Victoria state left 173 people dead and caused $4.4 billion in damage.

Additional World Book articles:

• Celsius scale
• Fahrenheit scale
• Why Fires Need to Burn (a special report)
• Australia 2009 (a Back in Time article)

March 9, 2012

Days of very heavy rain in Australia have caused flooding in parts of three states, New South Wales (NSW), Queensland, and Victoria. Thousands of residents have been forced to evacuate in NSW, where an enormous stretch–fully 75 percent–of Australia’s most populous state is under water. In what has been described as the state’s worst flooding in 150 years, scores of towns are inundated–from Forbes in central NSW to Griffith in the south and across the state line into northern Victoria. On March 7, the heaviest recorded rainfall in years triggered flash flooding across much of Sydney, Australia’s largest city.

World Book map; map data © MapQuest.com, Inc.

La Nina weather conditions, which typically bring higher-than-normal rainfall, are affecting Australia’s southeast. “Australia is in the throes of two consecutive La Nina events,” stated Aaron Coutts-Smith, NSW climate manager for Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. “It is very rare to have such persistent, record-breaking rainfall over such large areas .  .  .”  Just weeks ago, in February, thousands were forced to evacuate in Queensland, where residents suffered through a third major flood in less than two years. From 2001 through 2009, the same area, Australia’s southeast, underwent the worst drought in the continent’s recorded history.

Additional World Book articles

• Australia 2006 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2007 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2008 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2009 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2010 (Back in Time article)
• Australia 2011 (Back in Time article)