Founded
Papua New Guinea was founded in 1973 but first explored by Spanish and Portuguese explorers in the 16th century. The first inhabitants of Papua New Guinea, probably migrants from the Indonesian archipelago, arrived about 50,000 years ago. In 1526–27, the Portuguese explorer Jorge de Menezes accidentally came upon the principal island and is credited with naming it Papua, a Malay word for the frizzled quality of Melanesian hair. The term New Guinea was applied to the island in 1545 by a Spaniard, Yñigo Ortiz de Retez, because of a resemblance between the islands' inhabitants and those found on the African Guinea coast.In 1883, the Colony of Queensland tried to annex the southern half of eastern New Guinea, but the British government did not approve. However when Germany began settlements in the north a British protectorate was proclaimed in 1884 over the southern coast of New Guinea and its adjacent islands. The protectorate, called British New Guinea, was annexed outright on 4 September 1888. The possession was placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1902. Following the passage of the Papua Act in, 1905, British New Guinea became the Territory of Papua, and formal Australian administration began in 1906, although Papua remained de jure a British possession until the independence of Papua New Guinea in 1975.