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78-638: The unofficial geographic term Northern Australia includes those parts of Queensland and Western Australia north of latitude 26° and all of the Northern Territory . Those local government areas of Western Australia and Queensland that lie partially in the north are included. Although it comprises 45% of the total area of Australia , Northern Australia has only 5% of the Australian population (1.3 million in 2019). However, it includes several sources of Australian exports, being coal from

156-406: A self-governing Crown colony with responsible government . Brisbane was selected as the capital city. On 10 December 1859, a proclamation was read by George Bowen , the first Governor of Queensland , formally establishing Queensland as a separate colony from New South Wales. On 22 May 1860 the first Queensland election was held and Robert Herbert , Bowen's private secretary, was appointed as

234-616: A broad selection of Indigenous artwork from across the Kimberley. There is employment in the pastoral and mining industries, as well as administration and tourism. There is oil at Blina, diamond mining at Ellendale. Granite is quarried from the Wunaamin-Miliwundi Ranges and lead and zinc from Cadjebut and an iron ore mine at Koolan Island . A major mineral sands mining project is being developed at Thunderbird, 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Derby. In 1997

312-499: A coroner determined that he had died, but was unable to determine when or how, recording an open verdict. Convicted child killer James Ryan O'Neill was living in Derby at the time of Taylor's disappearance but he has denied any involvement. In 2023, a $ 1 million reward was offered to anyone who provided information as to what had happened to Taylor. According to the 2016 census of population, there were 3,325 people in Derby. Derby

390-597: A force of settlers and native police at Battle Mountain near modern Cloncurry . The subsequent battle of Battle Mountain ended in disaster for the Kalkadoon, who suffered heavy losses. Fighting continued in North Queensland , however, with First Nations raiders attacking sheep and cattle while Native Police mounted heavy retaliatory massacres. Tens of thousands of South Sea Islanders were kidnapped from islands nearby to Australia and sold as slaves to work on

468-569: A great rush to take up the surrounding land in the Darling Downs , Logan and Brisbane Valley and South Burnett onwards from 1840, in many cases leading to widespread fighting and heavy loss of life. The conflict later spread north to the Wide Bay and Burnett River and Hervey Bay region, and at one stage the settlement of Maryborough was virtually under siege. The largest reasonably well-documented massacres in southeast Queensland were

546-652: A population of half a million people. Since then, Queensland has remained a federated state within Australia, and its population has significantly grown. In 1905 women voted in state elections for the first time. The state's first university, the University of Queensland , was established in Brisbane in 1909. In 1911, the first alternative treatments for polio were pioneered in Queensland and remain in use across

624-598: A population of over 5.5 million, concentrated along the east coast, particularly in South East Queensland . The capital and largest city in the state is Brisbane , Australia's third-largest city . Ten of Australia's thirty largest cities are located in Queensland, the largest outside Brisbane being the Gold Coast , the Sunshine Coast , Townsville , Cairns , Ipswich , and Toowoomba . 24.2% of

702-562: A population over 2,000. Located on King Sound , Derby has the highest tides in Australia, with the differential between low and high tide reaching 11.8 metres (39 ft). Derby falls within Nyiginka country. The town was founded in 1883 and named after Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby , the British secretary of state for the colonies. During World War II , Derby was bombed by Japanese planes because of an air base and jetty that

780-478: A process known as blackbirding or press-ganging, and their employment conditions constituted an allegedly exploitative form of indentured labour. Italian immigrants entered the sugar cane industry from the 1890s. During the 1890s, the six Australian colonies, including Queensland, held a series of referendums which culminated in the Federation of Australia on 1 January 1901. During this time, Queensland had

858-658: A short, highly variable wet season lasting from late December to March. The wet season features hot, humid days and nights and erratic downpours. In some years there may be no wet season at all, as occurred in 1923–24 and in 1951–52, but in other years, such as 1999–2000, more than the average annual rainfall has fallen in a month. Derby can be affected by severe tropical cyclones . The dry season lasts from April to November and features very little rain, warm to hot daytime temperatures, and mild to cool nights. Extremes of temperature range from 47.8 °C (118.0 °F) on 17 November 1968 to 5.0 °C (41.0 °F) on 21 July 1965, while

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936-547: A tropical cyclone gave 740 millimetres (29 in) in one day at Whim Creek in the Pilbara, but for the whole of 1924 that same station recorded only 4 millimetres (0.16 in) for the whole year. Tropical cyclones may cross the coast anywhere in Northern Australia but are most frequent between Derby and Onslow on the west side and between Cooktown and Rockhampton on the east. Inland, variability of rainfall

1014-675: Is bordered by the Northern Territory , South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south, respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean ; to the state's north is the Torres Strait , separating the Australian mainland from Papua New Guinea , and the Gulf of Carpentaria to the north-west. With an area of 1,723,030 square kilometres (665,270 sq mi), Queensland

1092-583: Is found in the Our North Our Future: White Paper On Developing Northern Australia published by the Abbott government on 18 June 2015. Queensland Queensland ( locally / ˈ k w iː n z l æ n d / KWEENZ -land , commonly abbreviated as Qld ) is a state in northeastern Australia , and is the second-largest and third-most populous of the Australian states. It

1170-487: Is home to the Torres Strait Islander peoples . Torres Strait Islanders are ethnically and culturally distinct from mainland Aboriginal peoples. They have a long history of interaction with both Aboriginal peoples of what is now Australia and the peoples of New Guinea . In February 1606, Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed near the site of what is now Weipa , on the western shore of Cape York . This

1248-539: Is related to the penetration of the summer monsoon, with high rainfall in seasons like 1973/1974, 1975/1976 and from 1998 to 2001 when the monsoon is most powerful. Climate change has seen increases of up to fifty percent in annual rainfall since 1967 over the western half of Australia's tropics, but has not seen any increase over the east. The increase over the west is sometimes attributed to aerosol pollution over industrialising areas of China and India , but may be related to global warming . Frosts are common in

1326-440: Is rich in cultural diversity, with the local Aboriginal Australian culture playing a large part in the community. The Mowanjum Festival is held annually at Mowanjum Community , located 10 km (6.2 mi) south east of Derby, and features a showcase of traditional art . The Boab Festival (named after the boab tree) is a fortnight-long festival that includes traditional events such as mud football, watermelon seed spitting,

1404-658: Is the Wet Tropics of northern Queensland, where active volcanoes have been present as recently as the Pleistocene . The vast craton in the north and west contains a number of quite rugged mountain ranges, of which the highest are the MacDonnell and Musgrave Ranges on the southern border of the Northern Territory. These rise to over 1,500 metres (4,900 ft), but the most spectacular features are

1482-447: Is the world's sixth-largest subnational entity ; it is larger than all but 16 countries . Due to its size, Queensland's geographical features and climates are diverse, and include tropical rainforests , rivers , coral reefs , mountain ranges and white sandy beaches in its tropical and sub-tropical coastal regions, as well as deserts and savanna in the semi-arid and desert climatic regions of its interior . Queensland has

1560-582: The 138th meridian east , and to the southwest by northeastern South Australia . The state's southern border with New South Wales is constituted in the east by the watershed from Point Danger to the Dumaresq River , and the Dumaresq, Macintyre and Barwon rivers. The west of the southern border is defined by the 29th parallel south (including some minor historical encroachments ) until it reaches South Australia. Like much of eastern Australia,

1638-524: The Brisbane River . He returned in 1824 and established a penal settlement at what is now Redcliffe . The settlement, initially known as Edenglassie , was then transferred to the current location of the Brisbane city centre . Edmund Lockyer discovered outcrops of coal along the banks of the upper Brisbane River in 1825. In 1839 transportation of convicts was ceased, culminating in the closure of

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1716-630: The Gayiri Aboriginal people in response. Frontier violence peaked on the northern mining frontier during the 1870s, most notably in Cook district and on the Palmer and Hodgkinson River goldfields, with heavy loss of Aboriginal lives and several well-known massacres. Raids conducted by the Kalkadoon held settlers out of Western Queensland for ten years until September 1884 when they attacked

1794-902: The Great Dividing Range in Queensland/ New South Wales and the natural gas and iron ore of the Pilbara region in WA. It also includes major natural tourist attractions, such as Uluru (Ayers Rock), the Great Barrier Reef and the Kakadu National Park . Almost all of Northern Australia is a huge ancient craton that has not experienced geological upheaval since the end of the Precambrian . The only exception to this generalisation

1872-539: The Great Dividing Range runs roughly parallel with, and inland from, the coast, and areas west of the range are more arid than the humid coastal regions. The Great Barrier Reef , which is the world's largest coral reef system, runs parallel to the state's Coral Sea coast between the Torres Strait and K'gari (Fraser Island) . Queensland's coastline includes the world's three largest sand islands: K'gari (Fraser Island) , Moreton , and North Stradbroke . The state contains six World Heritage -listed preservation areas:

1950-636: The Kilcoy and Whiteside poisonings, each of which was said to have taken up to 70 Aboriginal lives by use of a gift of flour laced with strychnine . At the Battle of One Tree Hill in September 1843, Multuggerah and his group of warriors ambushed one group of settlers, routing them and subsequently others in the skirmishes which followed, starting in retaliation for the Kilcoy poisoning. Central Queensland

2028-657: The Kingdom of Great Britain on 22 August 1770 at Possession Island , naming eastern Australia, including Queensland, New South Wales . The Aboriginal population declined significantly after a smallpox epidemic during the late 18th century and massacres by the European settlers. In 1823, John Oxley , a British explorer, sailed north from what is now Sydney to scout possible penal colony sites in Gladstone (then Port Curtis ) and Moreton Bay . At Moreton Bay, he found

2106-700: The Mardi Gras and other festivities. Historically, Derby has played a major role in the Australian Royal Flying Doctor Service for the Kimberley region. The Kimberley School of the Air is located in Derby. The school provides education to isolated Primary-aged children living on cattle stations and in remote Aboriginal communities and outstations scattered throughout the 423,517 square kilometres (163,521 sq mi) Kimberley region. Derby has two schools located in

2184-836: The Ord River area in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and the Humpty Doo Rice Project in the Northern Territory. Northern Australia produces more than 93% of Australia’s mangoes, more than 94% of Australia’s bananas, and more than 95% of Australia’s sugar. Sheep and beef cattle are also raised successfully across Northern Australia, usually on extremely large properties. Northern Australia accounts for 64% of Australia’s national beef cattle herd. The geological factors that make Northern Australia's soils so unsuited to traditional agriculture, however, make it extremely rich in ores of abundant, insoluble lithophile metals such as aluminium , iron and uranium . It has

2262-601: The Sunshine State for its tropical and sub-tropical climates, Great Barrier Reef , and numerous beaches, tourism is also important to the state's economy. Queensland was one of the largest regions of pre-colonial Aboriginal population in Australia. The Aboriginal occupation of Queensland is thought to predate 50,000 BC, and early migrants are believed to have arrived via boat or land bridge across Torres Strait . Through time, their descendants developed into more than 90 different language and cultural groups. During

2340-414: The Torres Strait to the north, with Boigu Island off the coast of New Guinea representing the northern extreme of its territory. The triangular Cape York Peninsula , which points toward New Guinea, is the northernmost part of the state's mainland. West of the peninsula's tip, northern Queensland is bordered by the Gulf of Carpentaria . To the west, Queensland is bordered by the Northern Territory , at

2418-643: The White Australia policy came into effect, which saw most foreign workers in Australia deported under the Pacific Island Labourers Act 1901 , which saw the Pacific Islander population of the state decrease rapidly. A public meeting was held in 1851 to consider the proposed separation of Queensland from New South Wales. On 6 June 1859, Queen Victoria signed letters patent to form the separate colony of Queensland as

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2496-414: The White Australia policy in 1973 saw the beginning of a wave of immigration from around the world, and most prominently from Asia, which continues to the present. In 1981 the Great Barrier Reef off Queensland's northeast coast, one of the world's largest coral reef systems, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site . In 2003 Queensland adopted maroon as the state's official colour. The announcement

2574-424: The saltwater and freshwater crocodiles , which are by far the best-known animals of the region. There are also a number of species of python . Further south, where rivers are not adequate to support crocodiles, there exist a number of quite unique lizard species. The Wet Tropics, like all tropical rainforests, is very rich in unique species, and importantly contains some of the most primitive flowering plants in

2652-633: The soil pH and remove phosphorus from the soil as insoluble iron and aluminium phosphates . The insolubility of these metal oxides also serves, under the extremely harsh conditions during the dry season in the north and generally in the south, to create massive sheets which are impossible to plough. In the Lake Eyre Basin, deposition from volcanic regions to the east has produce cracking clay soils of quite high fertility which are still often fairly low in phosphorus but have very good levels of potassium , calcium and sulfur . These soils provide

2730-509: The 1950s and 1960s, the government of Robert Menzies attempted to develop farming in Northern Australia, but pests made this impossible even when varieties of rice suited to the soils were developed. Today, however, sugar cane growing has expanded into the Ord River basin without surpassing cattle and tourism as the main industries of the region. Proponents for the development of Northern Australia have been found since before Federation and include: The latest iteration of these proposals

2808-653: The Brisbane penal settlement. In 1842 free settlement, which had already commenced, was officially permitted. In 1847, the Port of Maryborough was opened as a wool port. While most early immigrants came from New South Wales, the first free immigrant ship to arrive in Moreton Bay from Europe was the Artemisia , in 1848. Earlier than this immigrant ship was the arrival of the Irish famine orphan girls to Queensland. Devised by

2886-493: The Derby wharf, which was closed in the 1980s, was re-opened for barging operations for the export of lead and zinc. Tourism bolsters the local economy between the months of May and September. The Derby Leprosarium on the outskirts of the town was one of two in Western Australia that helped to contain an epidemic of leprosy from the 1930s to the 1960s. Derby has a hot semi-arid climate ( Köppen BSh ), with

2964-604: The Feisty Colleens, never set foot on Sydney soil, and instead sailed up to Brisbane (then Moreton Bay) on 21 October 1848 on board the Ann Mary . This scheme continued until 1852. In 1857, Queensland's first lighthouse was built at Cape Moreton . The frontier wars fought between European settlers and Aboriginal tribes in Queensland were the bloodiest and most brutal in colonial Australia. Many of these conflicts are now seen as acts of genocide. The wars featured

3042-1077: The Great Barrier Reef along the Coral Sea coast, K'gari (Fraser Island) on the Wide Bay–Burnett region's coastline, the wet tropics in Far North Queensland including the Daintree Rainforest , Lamington National Park in South East Queensland , the Riversleigh fossil sites in North West Queensland , and the Gondwana Rainforests in South East Queensland. The state is divided into several unofficial regions which are commonly used to refer to large areas of

3120-666: The Native Police between 1859 and 1897. The military force of the Queensland Government in this war was the Native Police , who operated from 1849 to the 1920s. The Native Police was a body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander troopers that operated under the command of white officers. The Native Police were often recruited forcefully from far-away communities. Conflict spread quickly with free settlement in 1838, with settlement rapidly expanding in

3198-480: The Perth to Derby service was the world's longest passenger airline route. Derby Hospital treated many aboriginal patients with Hansen's Disease, then known as leprosy . The Derby Leprosarium operated from 1936 to 1986, staffed by nuns led by Sr Mary Gertrude . In 1968 the town had a population of approximately 1,500 people, many employed at the meatworks . A A$ 900,000 beef road from Glenroy Station to Derby

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3276-408: The age of sixteen. In total, approximately 15,000 South Sea Islander slaves died while working in Queensland, a figure which does not include those who died in transit or who were killed in the recruitment process. This represents a mortality rate of at least 30%, which is high considering most were only on three year contracts. It is also similar to the estimated 33% death rate of enslaved Africans in

3354-426: The best grassland for grazing in the region. The youthful, volcanic Wet Tropics has a number of areas of fertile alluvial soils that support intensive horticulture. The extreme soil poverty of most of Northern Australia has the effect of confining large herbivores such as the kangaroo to the better soil in the dry grasslands since they cannot digest the extreme poor fodder from the northern monsoonal regions. However,

3432-463: The closure of the state borders. With a total area of 1,729,742 square kilometres (715,309 square miles), Queensland is an expansive state with a highly diverse range of climates and geographical features. If Queensland were an independent nation, it would be the world's 16th largest. Queensland's eastern coastline borders the Coral Sea , an arm of the Pacific Ocean. The state is bordered by

3510-660: The colony's agricultural plantations through a process known as blackbirding . This trade in what were then known as Kanakas was in operation from 1863 to 1908, a period of 45 years. Some 55,000 to 62,500 were brought to Australia, most being recruited or blackbirded from islands in Melanesia , such as the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu ), the Solomon Islands and the islands around New Guinea . The majority of those taken were male and around one quarter were under

3588-582: The deep gorges of rivers such as the Finke . Most of the craton, however, is distinctly flat and generally low-lying with an average elevation of around 400 metres (1,300 ft), whilst in the Lake Eyre Basin most of the land is not far above sea level. The climate of the north of Australia ranges from arid ( Köppen BWh ) in the south to monsoonal (Köppen Aw ) in the Top End and Kimberley . On

3666-621: The east coast of Australia for the Kingdom of Great Britain . In 1788, Arthur Phillip founded the colony of New South Wales, which included all of what is now Queensland. Queensland was explored in subsequent decades, and the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement was established at Brisbane in 1824 by John Oxley . During the Australian frontier wars of the 19th century, colonists killed tens of thousands of Aboriginal people in Queensland while consolidating their control over

3744-574: The eastern coast, however, the climate is much more humid and ranges from humid sub-tropical (Köppen Cfa around Brisbane and Cwa further north) to humid tropical (Köppen Am and Af ) in the Wet Tropics. Except in the western part of the Pilbara and Gascoyne where the heaviest rain often occurs from May to July under northwest cloudbands, rainfall is heavily concentrated in the "summer" months from November to March. For instance, in Burketown ,

3822-517: The first Premier of Queensland . In 1865, the first rail line in the state opened between Ipswich and Grandchester . Queensland's economy expanded rapidly in 1867 after James Nash discovered gold on the Mary River near the town of Gympie , sparking a gold rush and saving the State of Freddy-Mercury-land from near economic collapse. While still significant, they were on a much smaller scale than

3900-712: The first commercial production of oil in Queensland and Australia began at Moonie . During World War II Brisbane became central to the Allied campaign when the AMP Building (now called MacArthur Central ) was used as the South West Pacific headquarters for General Douglas MacArthur , chief of the Allied Pacific forces, until his headquarters were moved to Hollandia in August 1944. In 1942, during

3978-458: The first three years of being taken to America. The trade was legally sanctioned and regulated under Queensland law, and prominent men such as Robert Towns made massive fortunes off of exploitation of slave labour, helping to establish some of the major cities in Queensland today. Towns' agent claimed that blackbirded labourers were "savages who did not know the use of money" and therefore did not deserve cash wages. Following Federation in 1901,

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4056-490: The frequency of fires during the desiccating dry season from May to September means that forests cannot establish themselves except in sheltered places. This has created a unique type of tropical savanna environment in which fires play a crucial role in elevating the extremely low nutrient levels and aiding growth during the wet season. The many large rivers of the region such as the Mitchell, Gilbert-Einasleigh, South and East Alligator, Daly, Ord and Fitzroy support populations of

4134-422: The gold rushes of Victoria and New South Wales. Immigration to Australia and Queensland, in particular, began in the 1850s to support the state economy. During the period from the 1860s until the early 20th century, many labourers, known at the time as Kanakas , were brought to Queensland from neighbouring Pacific Island nations to work in the state's sugar cane fields. Some of these people had been kidnapped under

4212-424: The last ice age , Queensland's landscape became more arid and largely desolate, making food and other supplies scarce. The people developed the world's first seed-grinding technology. The end of the glacial period brought about a warming climate, making the land more hospitable. It brought high rainfall along the eastern coast, stimulating the growth of the state's tropical rainforests. The Torres Strait Islands

4290-490: The later decades of the 20th century, the humid subtropical climate —regulated by the availability of air conditioning—saw Queensland become a popular destination for migrants from interstate. Since that time, Queensland has continuously seen high levels of migration from the other states and territories of Australia. In 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson became the first U.S. president to visit Queensland. During his visit, he met with Australia prime minister Harold Holt . The end of

4368-409: The months May to September are rainless in over fifty percent of years, with over eighty percent of Augusts having no rain. Temperatures in summer are generally unpleasantly hot apart from the eastern coastal belt. Maximum temperatures elsewhere between October and April range from 30 °C (86 °F) in the south in April to around 40 °C (104 °F) in the inland Pilbara and Kimberley before

4446-452: The most frequent massacres of First Nations people, the three deadliest massacres on white settlers, the most disreputable frontier police force, and the highest number of white victims to frontier violence on record in any Australian colony. Across at least 644 collisions at least 66,680 were killed — with Aboriginal fatalities alone comprising no less than 65,180. Of these deaths, around 24,000 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed by

4524-399: The only Australian state with a unicameral parliament . In 1935 cane toads were deliberately introduced to Queensland from Hawaii in an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the number of French's cane and greyback cane beetles that were destroying the roots of sugar cane plants, which are integral to Queensland's economy. The toads have remained an environmental pest since that time. In 1962,

4602-446: The rainfall over the wet season can vary from less than 100 millimetres (3.9 in) in 1901/1902 to over 2,000 millimetres (79 in) in 1973/1974. The chief cause of this very high variability is erratic tropical cyclones , which occur from December to April and in many places can deliver as much as 350 millimetres (14 in) of rain over a day or two, causing extremely large floods in the region's rivers. For example, in April 1898,

4680-730: The region since the Precambrian and no glaciation since the Carboniferous , the region's soils have generally been under continuous weathering without renewal for over 250 million years , as against less than ten thousand for most soils in Europe , Asia , North America and New Zealand which have been formed from recent mountain building or glacial scouring of the land. This immensely long weathering time means that nutrient levels in Northern Australian soils are exceptionally low because practically all soluble minerals have long been weathered out. The major constituents of most soils in Northern Australia are iron and aluminium oxides , both of which are not only very insoluble but also serve to reduce

4758-438: The south, where minima can be as low as 5 °C (41 °F) in Alice Springs in June and July. The above generalisations, however, mask the immense variability of the climate throughout the whole region. With the exception of the extreme north of the Northern Territory, rainfall variability throughout Northern Australia is quite markedly higher than most comparable climates in other continents. For example, at Charters Towers ,

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4836-528: The southern inland during the winter, but in some years, such as 1998, they are much less frequent due to the recent incidence of warm pools in the Indian Ocean . Except in the Lake Eyre Basin and adjacent areas to the east, the soils of Northern Australia are quite remarkable in global terms for their low fertility and difficulty of working. Most of them consist chiefly of hard laterite developed during period of climate much more humid than even that of Darwin today. Since there has been no mountain building in

4914-418: The state's population were born overseas . The state has the highest inter-state net migration in Australia. Queensland was first inhabited by Aboriginal Australians , with the Torres Strait Islands inhabited by Torres Strait Islanders . Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon , the first European to land in Australia, explored the west coast of the Cape York Peninsula in 1606. In 1770, James Cook claimed

4992-399: The state's vast geography. These include: Derby, Western Australia Derby ( / ˈ d ɜːr b i / DUR -bee ) is a town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia . At the 2016 census , Derby had a population of 3,325 with 47.2% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent. Along with Broome and Kununurra , it is one of only three towns in the Kimberley to have

5070-406: The territory. On 6 June 1859 (now commemorated as Queensland Day ), Queen Victoria signed the letters patent to establish the colony of Queensland, separating it from New South Wales and thereby establishing Queensland as a self-governing Crown colony with responsible government . A large part of colonial Queensland's economy relied on blackbirded South Sea Islander slavery. Queensland

5148-439: The then British Secretary of State for the Colonies, The Earl Grey Scheme established a special emigration scheme which was designed to resettle destitute girls from the workhouses of Ireland during the Great Famine. The first ship, the "Earl Grey", departed Ireland for a 124-day sail to Sydney. After controversy developed upon their arrival in Australia, a small group of 37 young orphans, sometimes referred to as The Belfast Girls or

5226-401: The town, Holy Rosary School Derby and Derby District High School. Derby District High School follows Chris Sarra 's vision of "Stronger Smarter", which aims to raise the expectations of the school as a community. Wharfinger's House Museum tells the story of the aviation history of the town as well as the history of the port. The Norval Gallery showcases the work of artist Mark Norval as well as

5304-428: The war, Brisbane was the site of a violent clash between visiting US military personnel and Australian servicemen and civilians, which resulted in one death and hundreds of injuries. This incident became known colloquially as the Battle of Brisbane . The end of World War II saw a wave of immigration from across Europe, with many more immigrants coming from southern and eastern Europe than in previous decades. In

5382-432: The wet season breaks. Further north, maxima are consistently around 32 °C (90 °F) but extreme humidity makes conditions very unpleasant. On the coast, maxima in January range from 29 °C (84 °F) in the south to 32 °C (90 °F), with minima generally around 21 °C (70 °F). In July, temperatures show a wider range, from 31 °C (88 °F) in the north to around 19 °C (66 °F) in

5460-410: The world today. World War I had a major impact on Queensland . Over 58,000 Queenslanders fought in World War I and over 10,000 of them died. Australia's first major airline, Qantas (originally standing for "Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services"), was founded in Winton in 1920 to serve outback Queensland. In 1922 Queensland abolished the Queensland Legislative Council , becoming

5538-488: The world's largest deposits of all these metals, and as less reactive chalcophile metals have been depleted Northern Australia has become very important to the economies of mineral-poor Asian nations. It was Northern Australian iron ore that fed the Japanese post-war economic miracle and the Four Tigers of South Korea , Taiwan , Hong Kong and Singapore . At 2015, Northern Australia accounted for over 70% of Australia’s known resources of iron ore, lead, and zinc. During

5616-467: The world. Northern Australia faces major challenges to economic growth. Although the climate and soil poverty have defied all attempts to develop large-scale agriculture in large parts of Northern Australia, some agricultural and horticultural industries have seen strong growth. For example, in the Wet Tropics, mango , sugar cane and banana growing are major industries. Notable failures in ventures into attempting rice cultivation have occurred in both

5694-587: Was among the six colonies which became the founding states of Australia with Federation on 1 January 1901. Since the Bjelke-Petersen era of the late 20th century, Queensland has received a high level of internal migration from the other states and territories of Australia and remains a popular destination for interstate migration. Queensland has the third-largest economy among Australian states, with strengths in mining, agriculture, transportation, international education , insurance, and banking. Nicknamed

5772-411: Was completed the same year to assist with the development of beef processing. A A$ 2 million steel and concrete jetty was built in 1965 to provide adequate port facilities for the shipment of live cattle. The West Kimberley Regional Prison , whose architecture won several awards, was opened in 2012. Local boy Jimmy Taylor disappeared from Derby on 29 August 1974 after walking to a local shop. In 2014,

5850-575: Was made as a result of an informal tradition to use maroon to represent the state in association with sporting events. After three decades of record population growth, Queensland was impacted by major floods between late 2010 and early 2011 , causing extensive damage and disruption across the state. In 2020 Queensland was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic . Despite a low number and abrupt decline in cases from April 2020 onward, social distancing requirements were implemented from March 2020 including

5928-565: Was particularly hard hit during the 1860s and 1870s, several contemporary writers mention the Skull Hole, Bladensburg, or Mistake Creek massacre on Bladensburg Station near Winton , which in 1901 was said to have taken up to 200 Aboriginal lives. First Nations warriors killed 19 settlers during the Cullin-La-Ringo massacre on 17 October 1861. In the weeks afterwards, police, native police and civilians killed up to 370 members of

6006-556: Was the first recorded landing of a European in Australia , and it also marked the first reported contact between Europeans and the Aboriginal people of Australia . The region was also explored by French and Spanish explorers (commanded by Louis Antoine de Bougainville and Luís Vaez de Torres , respectively) before the arrival of Lieutenant James Cook in 1770. Cook claimed the east coast under instruction from King George III of

6084-403: Was used by Australian forces. More recently, refugees were housed at Royal Australian Air Force Base Curtin , however the detention centre was closed in 2014. Derby was famous in the 1920s as the terminus of the first scheduled aviation service in Australia, West Australian Airways Ltd. Their service began with their first flight on 5 December 1921, which crashed, near Geraldton . At one time

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