Australia has been inhabited by the Aboriginal peoples for 50,000–60,000 years, but Europeans did not sight Australia until 1606. In 1788, Australia's first European settlers arrived, but they did not venture far inland. By the 1840s, men such as Charles Sturt had begun to explore the Australian interior, but the results were discouraging: the heart of Australia seemed to be a vast, hostile desert. That desert claimed many European explorers' lives, including those of the infamous Burke and Wills expedition.

First European discoveries

The first European to set eyes on Australia did so by accident. In 1606, Dutchman Willem Janszoon sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria while en route to a trading post, Batavia (now Jakarta), in Java.

In 1642, the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies, Anthony van Diemen, sent explorer Abel Tasman on an official mission to the continent. He discovered the large island to the south of Australia, which is now known as Tasmania. He also landed on New Zealand, where four of his men were attacked and killed by Maoris. He made a second voyage along the northern coast of Australia in 1644. However, the Dutch found few trading opportunities in these territories and did little to explore them further.

In 1699, Englishman William Dampier set out to explore Australia, sponsored by the British government. His ship anchored in Shark Bay on Australia’s west coast, a barren and inhospitable place. Rather than heading south into what was a pleasant, fertile region, Dampier chose to sail north. He did not find any habitable land and his mission was declared a failure.

James Cook

In 1770, Captain James Cook anchored in Botany Bay on the eastern coast of Australia. His expedition to the South Pacific Ocean to discover Terra Australis Incognita, or “Unknown Southern Land” (what we now call Antarctica) had so far proven unsuccessful. He then set sail northwards up the eastern coast of Australia, which he claimed for Britain, naming it New South Wales.

British settlement

The British began to settle in Australia soon after James Cook's voyage of exploration. The first settlers were British convicts and their overseers, who in 1788 established a penal colony (where convicts are forced to labour as punishment for their crimes) at Botany Bay in southeastern Australia. They later founded the cities of Sydney (1788), Perth (1829) and Melbourne (1835).

​​​​​​​From 1801 to 1803, Englishman Matthew Flinders circumnavigated the continent, proving that it was a huge island.

Mapping the interior

It took many more years to map the Australian interior. Many thought it contained a huge inland sea, but it turned out to be nothing but desert. In 1829–30, British explorer Charles Sturt discovered two major rivers in the southeast: the Darling and the Murray.

​​​​​​​The south coast was charted by Englishman Edward Eyre, who trekked from Adelaide to Albany in 1840, accompanied by an Aboriginal guide named Wylie.

Ludwig Leichhardt

The German scientist Ludwig Leichhardt led a number of expeditions into Australia's interior from 1842 onward. He studied the plants, animals and geology of the regions he explored. On one expedition, in 1845, his party went missing for so long that they were supposed dead. Leichhardt returned to Sydney to a hero's welcome, although his companion John Gilbert did not return alive.

​​​​​​​In 1848, Leichhardt attempted to cross the continent from east to west, but his expedition party vanished, probably somewhere in the Great Sandy Desert. Despite the efforts of numerous search parties, Leichhardt and his companions were never seen again.

The Burke and Wills expedition

In 1859, the South Australia government offered a prize to the first person to cross the continent from south to north. An expedition led by Irishman Robert O’Hara Burke left Melbourne in August 1860. It included 23 camels that had been specially imported from India. By October 1860, many in the expedition party had returned, leaving only Burke and a few companions to press on.

From south to north

In 1861, John McDouall Stuart led another expedition attempting to cross the continent from south to north. He and his party set out from Adelaide in South Australia on 25th October 1861. He reached the north coast near modern-day Darwin on 24th July 1862, where he triumphantly raised the British flag. He was the first European to lead a party across the continent from south to north—and return. Stuart never recovered his health after his punishing journey, however, and he died in Britain in 1866.