1606: Dutchman, Willem Jansz, explores the western coast of Cape York Peninsula and the Spaniard Torres passes through the Torres Straits

1644: The name New Holland adopted for Australia

1770: Captain James Cook annexes eastern Australia for Britain

1788: European colonisation of Australia begins at Sydney Cove.

1799: Matthew Flinders in the Norfolk enters Moreton Bay and climbs Beerburrum

1802-1803: Flinders in the Investigator discovers Port Curtis, surveys the coast, enters the Gulf of Carpentaria and proves that east and west are one land mass

1821-1825: Brisbane succeeds Macquarie as Governor of New South Wales

1823: Pamphlet and Finnegan are shipwrecked at Moreton Bay, saved by the Aborigines, and rescued by John Oxley telling him about the Brisbane River

1824: Convict settlement established at "Humpy Bong", Redcliffe. Governor Brisbane visits in November

1825: Edenglassie is established at the site of Brisbane, replacing Redcliffe

1825-1830: Captain Logan succeeds Millar and Bishop as Commandants at Moreton Bay and settlement is begun at Limestone (now Ipswich)

1827: Alan Cunningham explores north to the Darling Downs

1828: Discovery of the Cunningham's Gap route to Darling Downs.

1828: Windmill, operated as a treadmill, completed in Wickham Terrace, Brisbane

1829: Commissariat Store completed as two storey building by the river wharves

1831: Population of Moreton Bay colony reaches 1066 convicts and 175 soldiers

1838: Andrew Petrie discovers the bunya pine; German missionaries come to Nundah

Sketch of the paddle steamer SOPHIA JANE, the second steamer to enter Moreton bay in 1839.

1839-1840: Most of the convict population removed from Moreton Bay

1842: First sale of land at Brisbane, now a free settlement

1846: Moreton Bay Courier newspaper first published.

1849: Lang's immigrants arrive in the Fortitude, Chasely and Lima.

1853: Captain J.C. Wickham appointed Government resident, 1 January.

1856: Moreton Bay census European population 18,544;

1858: Canoona gold rush a failure but Rockhampton becomes a port of entry

1860: Queensland Parliament established.

1867: Major gold discovery at Gympie

1868: First commercial sugar production by Louis Hope at Ormiston, Cleveland

1870: Free education introduced to Queensland

1883: Queensland Premier Sir Thomas McIlwraith annexes part of New Guinea, action repudiated in London.

Brisbane during the record 1893 flood showing most of Charlotte Street under water

1901: 1 January Australian Federation