Intriguing, confronting, harsh, inspiring The Australian convict story includes over 160,000 tales of men, women and children who were transported from across the world. What happened to them once they arrived depended on many things such as their gender, behaviour, skills or age, which could lead them to many different parts of the colonies. On 31 July 2010, eleven of these sites across the country were recognised by UNESCO and placed on the World Heritage list as the Australian Convict Sites,

A Short History of Convict Australia is the first ever documentary about Australia's convict past. In this fascinating episode Ian Wright travels from Portsmouth, England, to the former penal colonies of Sarah Island, Norfolk Island and Port Arthur in Australia. He learns how convicts lived and worked, meeting historians and descendants of convicts, and learning about the impact on native Aboriginal groups and the legacy of the dramatic, brutal birth of a nation and the progression of a society