History
South East Queensland was home to around 20,000 Aboriginals at the time of James Cook's voyage along the east coast of Australia. According to Aboriginal history researchers the indigenous population declined to around 10,000 over the next 60 years.
Early explorers in the area including Matthew Flinders, Allan Cunningham, John Oxley and Patrick Logan. Around 1839, European settlers were able to move into the region. Logging was the first industry to develop. The first railway built in Queensland linked Grandchester to Ipswich in 1865 along a narrow 1067 mm gauge.
Major floods were experienced in 1893, 1974 and 2011. In 2005, the region suffered its worst drought in recorded history.
See also: History of BrisbaneRead more about this topic: South East Queensland
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“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)