History of Darwin

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This article is part of the series History of Australia

Capital Cities

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Darwin

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The history of Darwin has been a colourful and often tragic one; the Australian city's location has meant that it has been a victim of man-made disasters, such as World War II and also natural ones, such as Cyclone Tracy.

The first people to have inhabited this area are the Larrakia people, Indigenous Australians whose country traditionally included present-day rural and urban Darwin and Darwin Harbour. They have lived in this area for possibly 40,000 years, and continue to do so today.

The Larrakia had trading routes with Southeast Asia, and imported goods from as far afield as South and Western Australia. Established 'songlines' penetrated throughout the country, allowing stories and histories to be told and retold along the routes.

The Dutch visited Australia's northern coastline in the 1600s, and created the first European maps of the area, hence Dutch names such as Arnhem Land.

The first British person to sight Darwin's harbour appears to have been Lieutenant John Lort Stokes of HMS Beagle in 1839. The ship's captain, Commander John Clements Wickham, named the port after Charles Darwin, the British naturalist who had sailed with them both on the earlier second expedition of the Beagle.

The Northern Territory was initially settled and administered by South Australia, until its transfer to the Commonwealth in 1911. On 5 February 1869, George Goyder, the Surveyor-General of South Australia, established a small settlement of 135 men and women at Port Darwin. Goyder named the settlement Palmerston, after the British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston. In 1870, the first poles for the Overland Telegraph were erected in Darwin connecting Australia to the rest of the World. The discovery of gold at Pine Creek in the 1880s further boosted the young colony's development. Upon Commonwealth administration in 1911, Darwin became the city's official name.

On 19 February 1942, during the Pacific War, 242 Japanese warplanes attacked Darwin in two waves. It was the same fleet that had bombed Pearl Harbour, though a considerably larger amount of bombs were dropped on Darwin, than on Pearl Harbour. This aspect of Darwin's history is often overlooked when discussing World War II. The attack killed at least 243 people and caused immense damage to the town. These were by far the most serious attacks on Australia in time of war, in terms of fatalities and damage. They were the first of many raids on Darwin.

On Australia Day , 26 January 1959, Darwin was granted city status.[1]

Darwin was largely destroyed on 25 December 1974 by Cyclone Tracy, which killed 71 people and destroyed over 70% of the town's buildings, including many old stone buildings such as the Palmerston Town Hall, which could not withstand the lateral forces generated by the strong winds. After the disaster, an airlift evacuated 30,000 people. The town was subsequently rebuilt with newer materials and techniques during the late 1970s by the Darwin Reconstruction Commission. A satellite city of Palmerston was built 20 km south of Darwin in the early 1980s. The city has since been hit by the weaker storms Cyclone Max, on 11 March 1981, and Cyclone Gretel, on 14 April 1985, and although both caused significant plant damage, there was minimal structural damage due to the "post-tracy" building code.

On 17 September 2003, the Adelaide-Darwin Railway was completed.