[3] Torres had joined the expedition of Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, which sailed west from Peru across the Pacific Ocean, in search of Terra Australis.

Lieutenant James Cook first claimed British sovereignty in 1770 over the eastern part of Australia at Possession Island, calling it New South Wales in the Name of His Majesty King George the Third.

After the Anglican Church took over their mission in the 20th century, they referred to the events as "The Coming of the Light", and established an annual celebration on 1 July.

There they were provided with Snider carbines to repel the attacks of the Marind-anim (formerly known as Tugeri), the headhunters who raided the islands from their territory on the New Guinea coast.

[4] In 1898–1899, the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition led by Alfred Cort Haddon visited the Torres Strait Islands.

Among its members was W. H. R. Rivers, who later gained notability for his work in psychology and treating officers in the Great War.

From 1960 to 1973, Margaret Lawrie captured some of the Torres Strait Islander people's culture by recording their recounting of local myths and legends.

Her anthropological work, stored at the State Library of Queensland, has recently been recognised and registered with the Australian UNESCO Memory of the World Programme.

The Papua New Guinea government objected to the position of the border close to the New Guinean mainland, and the subsequent complete control that Australia exercised over the waters of the strait.

[14] An agreement was struck in 1978 whereby the islands and their inhabitants remained Australian, but the maritime boundary between Australia and Papua New Guinea was defined as running through the centre of the strait.

The ruling thus has had far-reaching significance for the land claims of both Torres Strait Islanders and Australian Aboriginal people.

Its effects are still being felt in the 21st century, as indigenous communities establish claims to their traditional lands under the Native Title Act of 1993.

Many of the western Torres Strait Islands are the remaining peaks of this land bridge which were not completely submerged when the ocean levels rose.

The islands and their surrounding waters and reefs provide a highly diverse set of land and marine ecosystems, with niches for many rare or unique species.

Marine animals of the islands include dugongs (an endangered species of sea mammal widely found throughout the Indian Ocean and tropical Western Pacific, including Papua-New Guinean and Australian waters), as well as green, ridley, hawksbill and flatback sea turtles.

The islands in this cluster lie very close to the southwestern coastline of New Guinea (the closest is less than 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) offshore).

The islands in this cluster lie south of the Strait's midway point, and are also largely high granite hills with mounds of basaltic outcrops, formed from old peaks of the now submerged land bridge.

Nurupai Horn Island holds the region's airport, and as a result is something of an entrepôt with inhabitants drawn from many other communities.

The Torres Strait Island Region local government area superseded the ICC in March 2008.

These former councils had been previously relinquished by the Government of Queensland to specific Islander and Aboriginal Councils under the provisions of the Community Services (Torres Strait) Act 1984 and the Community Services (Aboriginal) Act 1984), consisting of: This shows the localities of the Torres Strait Islands in alphabetical order.

[citation needed] (2016 Census) km2 Politicians who have declared support for independence, include Bob Katter and former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who in August 2011 wrote to Prime Minister Julia Gillard in support of Torres Strait Islands independence from Australia; Prime Minister Gillard said in October 2011 "her government will respectfully consider the Torres Strait's request for self-government".

It developed more fully as a creole language, with its own distinctive sound system, grammar, vocabulary, usage and meaning.

Torres Strait Creole is also spoken on the Australian mainland, including in the Northern Peninsula Area Region and coastal communities such as Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton and Brisbane.

Other developing problems include erosion, property damage, drinking water contamination and the unearthing of the dead.

[35] In early 2020, it was reported that Warraber is particularly threatened by rising sea levels, and coastal defences have been built on many of the beaches on the island.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has predicted that by 2100, tides will rise 30–110 cm (12–43 in), depending on the timing and level of cuts to carbon emissions.

[35] A group of eight people from the small, low-lying islands of Boigu, Poruma, Warraber and Masig,[37] who became known as the Torres Strait 8, lodged a complaint against the Australian Government with the UN Human Rights Committee in May 2019, based on the claim that their human rights were being violated by the government's lack of efforts to protect the people of the Strait from the effects of climate change.

Their complaint has been supported by the current and previous UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, David Boyd and John Knox respectively.

[37] The committee called on the government to compensate the islanders for the harm already inflicted, "consult the community on their needs and take action to secure their safety".

Occasional infections have been discovered on Cape York Peninsula but they have been successfully halted with eradication programs.