Southern Cross
The Southern Cross is thought to represent Australia's position in the Southern Hemisphere (see Southern Cross Flag). It has been used as a symbol of Australia since in the 1820's when there were crown colonies of the British Empire in Australia. The National Colonial Flag for Australia was the first such concept to depict the Southern Cross.
Some claim that the Southern Cross is not explicitly Australian but could represent any nation at all in the southern hemisphere. As well as the Australian flag, it also already appears on the flags of Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and New Zealand.
Read more about this topic: Australian Flag Debate
Famous quotes containing the words southern and/or cross:
“It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)