South Australia historical timeline

Origins

The Kaurna held the Adelaide plains, the Adnyamathanha the Flinders, the Ngarrindjeri the lower Murray and Coorong. Naracoorte's caves hold a fossil record of megafauna stretching back half a million years, and are World Heritage-listed for it.

Turning points

Founded in 1836 as a free settlement — no convicts, by design — on a planned grid surrounded by parkland, a layout Adelaide still has. Religious dissenters came in numbers, which is where the "City of Churches" came from.

Influential people

Silesian Lutherans fleeing Prussian religious persecution settled the Barossa from the 1840s and planted the vines. Their descendants' German surnames are still on the wineries and the bakeries.

Cultural evolution

South Australia gave women the vote in 1894 — with the right to stand for parliament, a world first — and led on social reform again in the 1970s under Don Dunstan.

Present-day significance

Wine, grain, defence shipbuilding and mining carry the economy. The state now runs one of the highest shares of wind and solar generation of any comparable grid anywhere.