With everything happening recently, I began looking a little bit about history. My world was literally flipped upside down when I found that Australia is part of the countries that the Queen also ruled. Can someone brief me on how history made that possible? Australia is so disconnected from Europe..and not just geographically.
Broadly speaking, the modern Australian state is a result of a decision by the British to invade Australia in order to establish a prison colony there. I wrote about the decision making related to the British deciding to send the first fleet of convicts to Australia here.
As to the relationship between Australia and the UK remaining strong to the extent that Australia still has the British monarch as its head of state, I discuss that in more detail in this particular comment about the cultural ties between mainstream Australian culture and the UK..