Queen Victoria issues Letters Patent, annexing to…
July 1863 CE
Indigenous Australians have lived in the present area of the Northern Territory for an estimated forty thousand years, and extensive seasonal trade links have existed between them and the peoples of what is now Indonesia for at least five centuries.
With the coming of the British, there had been four early attempts to settle the harsh environment of the northern coast, of which three had failed in starvation and despair.
The Northern Territory has been part of colonial New South Wales from 1825.