It’s 250 years since Captain James Cook set foot in Australia, and there’s a growing push to fully acknowledge the violence of Australia’s colonial past.

On today’s episode of the podcast, historian Kate Darian-Smith of the University of Tasmania explains that the way Australia has commemorated Cook’s arrival has changed over time – from military displays in 1870 to waning interest in Cook in the 1950s, followed by the fever-pitch celebrations of 1970.

Now, though, a more nuanced debate is required, she says, adding that it’s time to discuss the violence that Cook’s crew meted out to Indigenous people after stepping ashore at Botany Bay.

"I think discussing those violent moments is quite confronting for many Australians, but also sits within wider discussions about Aboriginal rights and equality in today’s Australia," Darian-Smith told The Conversation’s Phoebe Roth.

In her companion essay, Cooking the books: how re-enactments of the Endeavour’s voyage perpetuate myths of Australia’s ‘discovery’, co-authored with Katrina Schlunke, Darian-Smith argues many of the popular "re-enactments" of national "foundation moments" in Australia’s past have elements of fantasy, compressing time and history into palatable narratives for mainstream Australia.