In 1901, workers began to cut a ninety-one-metre tunnel through the sandstone of the Darlington Range. First used in 1903, it is now known as the Lahey’s Canungra Tramway Tunnel. It was part of a privately-constructed tramway route owned by the Lahey family, who...

Goats played an important role in the early history of Queensland. Arriving in Australia on the First Fleet, goats spread across the country with European settlement. Serving as a handy source of meat, milk, and transportation, they thrived in the harsh Australian...

This plaque, from Possession Island off the tip of Cape York, commemorated Captain James Cook’s claiming of the “whole eastern coast of Australia from the Latitude of 38 degrees south” (from near Melbourne north to Cape York) in the name of the British king. The...

While television broadcasting officially commenced in Queensland in 1959, Queenslanders first started experimenting with television broadcasting technology in the 1930s. Thomas Elliot was part of a group of dedicated amateur radio operators, who, in 1934, began...

Big Pineapple opened in 1971, as part of the Sunshine Plantation – an early example of agricultural tourism. Located in Woombye in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast Region, the sixteen-metre-tall fibreglass Big Pineapple is arguably Queensland’s most iconic ‘big thing’....

Entrant in the 1967 Miss International Air Hostess Quest Between 1963 and 1969, the Gold Coast hosted the Miss International Air Hostess Quest.It lived up to its name, attracting contestants from countries as diverse as the United States, West Germany, Sweden, India,...

With the current flood crisis engulfing Townsville and the resulting concerns about disease, it might be a good time to draw attention to a significant incident from Townsville’s past. In 1910, the Australian Institute for Tropical Medicine (now succeeded...