In the timelines there are many similarities just between Australia & New Zealand and a lot of those are also similar with U.S. history. The similarity that is probably most obvious is how they were populated, gold. In the 1850s Gold was found in southern Australia, people fled from all over to look for gold in Australia, "The number of new arrivals to Australia was greater than the number of convicts who had landed here in the previous seventy years. The total population trebled from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871" (http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/goldrush/). The same thing happened in New Zealand from 1852 to 1865. Gold was found all over New Zealand which led to population booms all over the country (http://www.nzmint.com/bullion/about-gold/gold-new-zealand). The U.S. was already very populated before the California Gold Rush but the western half wasn't. When Gold was found there in 1848 people from all over America left their homes in search of Gold in California (http://www.kidport.com/reflib/usahistory/calgoldrush/calgoldrush.htm#Events). America is supposed to be a place where everyone has equal opportunities and even though it may seem like that now it never used to be. We captured people from Africa and used them as slaves here. They never had a say in what they wanted, they weren't considered citizens. They were barely considered human. Australia did similar things to Aborigines. They have both formally apologized to the races that they hurt and make attempts to compensate for their mistakes (http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/slavery.html).
