While Indigenous Australians have inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years, and traded with nearby islanders, the first documented landing on Australia by a European was in 1606.

While Captain Cook's journal from the H.M.S. Endeavour is often on display in the Library's Treasures Gallery, it is currently not on display to allow rest and treatment for the long term preservation of the item.

There is some conjecture about the first European birth on Australian soil, but William Nash seems to be the prime candidate.

For many centuries Europeans believed there must be a vast land in the southern hemisphere, variously called ‘Terra Australis Incognita’ from the Latin for ‘Unknown South Land’.