The history of Queensland encompasses both a long Aboriginal Australian presence as well as the more recent periods of European colonisation and as a state of Australia.

[1] Before being charted and claimed for the Kingdom of Great Britain by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770, the coast of north-eastern Australia was explored by Dutch and French navigators.

The Kalkadoon people of the inland central gulf region dug wells 10m deep to maintain their supply of freshwater.

When James Cook explored and charted the east coast of Australia in 1770–1772 he was able to navigate close to shore in shallow water as HMB Endeavour was flat-bottomed, so he and the other scientists on board had plenty of time to examine the land through telescopes whilst depths were taken every few metres for the charts, but they reported they saw no evidence of either agriculture or permanent structures, which caused them to believe the people were nomads and therefore the land was "Terra Nullius" or without owners.

[1] In 1606, the Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed near the site of the modern-day town of Weipa on the western shore of Cape York.

[1] In 1606, Luis Váez de Torres, a Spanish explorer may have sighted the Queensland coast at the tip of Cape York.

In 1768, the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville sailed west from the New Hebrides islands, getting to within a hundred miles of the Queensland coast.

On a later trip to England, his ship HMS Porpoise and the accompanying Cato ran aground on a coral reef off the Queensland coast.

Flinders set off for Sydney in an open cutter, at a distance of 750 miles (1,210 km), where the Governor sent ships back to rescue the crew from Wreck Reef.

In 1823, John Oxley sailed north from Sydney to inspect Port Curtis (now Gladstone) and Moreton Bay as possible sites for a penal colony.

In the same year, Andrew Petrie reported favourable grazing conditions and decent forests to the north of Brisbane, which led shortly to the arrival of settlers to Fraser Island and the Cooloola coast region.

)[8] Yet even this figure is liable to increase if the results of the first attempt to use extensive primary sources to calculate the Aboriginal casualties due to violence on the Queensland frontier in this period is used.

On 27 October 1857 Martha Fraser's Hornet Bank station on the Dawson River, in central Queensland took the lives of 11 Europeans.

[11] The tent camp of the embryo station of Cullin-La-Ringo near Springsure was attacked by Aboriginals on 17 October 1861, killing 19 people including the grazier Horatio Wills.

[12] Following the wreck of the brig Maria at Bramble Reef near the Whitsunday Islands, on 26 February 1872, a total of 14 European survivors were massacred by local Aboriginals.

[15] Queensland was the only Australian colony that commenced immediately with its own parliament (responsible government), instead of first spending time with a governor appointed by The Crown.

[citation needed] On 2 June 1883, the decision to form a rugby union association was made at the Exchange hotel in Brisbane.

[29] The Mahina Cyclone of 1899 strikes Cape York Peninsula, destroying a pearling fleet in Princess Charlotte Bay.

[citation needed] During the 1890s many workers known as the Kanakas were brought to Queensland from neighbouring Pacific Island nations to work in the sugar cane fields.

[citation needed] Federation was a considerable economic shock to Queensland, which had the most restrictive tariff policy on the eve of the formation of Commonwealth customs union.

[37] Initially in 1914 the war in Europe did not impact greatly on life in Queensland, although the existing militia was deployed in the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force attack on German New Guinea.

[38] The outbreak of war created a heightened sense of patriotism; the call for Queenslanders to volunteer for the Australian Imperial Force met its initial quota of 2500 men by September 1914.

[42] Visiting London during the outbreak of the war, Annie Wheeler, a married nurse, remained in London and, with the assistance of her daughter Portia, became a volunteer worker for the comfort of Central Queensland soldiers, maintaining a comprehensive card index through which she ensured the soldiers and their families were kept well-informed and supported through practical and financial assistance.

[43] Garland is specifically credited with initiating the Anzac Day march, the wreath-laying ceremonies at memorials and the special church services, the two minutes silence, and the luncheon for returned soldiers.

The Queensland Commissioner for Public Health was empowered to examine, detain or isolate anyone with the disease or believed to have been in contact with a sick person.

Despite not being official entry points, the police were required to actively prevent crossings at border locations such as Killarney, Stanthorpe, Texas and Hebel.

Internal migrants were attracted to Queensland's buoyant economy, and the opportunity for young families to more easily purchase homes than market conditions would allow in Sydney.

Major planning of road, rail, electricity and water infrastructure was undertaken to cope with the growing population, with many of these projects being built during the following decade.

In 2020, despite a low number of cases during the COVID-19 pandemic, Queensland's state borders were temporarily and conditionally closed, and social distancing was introduced.

During Steven Miles time as Premier, most Australians and people around the world as well as Queenslanders, have been going through a cost of living crisis due to a number of factors.