Elder Family of Scots merchants and ship owners saw the infant South Australia as an opportunity to expand their business interests. Alexander Lang Elder (1815–1885), the pioneer, arrived in 1839 and established a trading business. 

In October 1896, within one year of the Lumière brothers’ first public screening of film in Paris, the first public film screening in South Australia occurred at the Theatre Royal in Hindley Street

Paradoxically, the only parts of South Australia to experience occasional serious disruption of by flooding are the far distant sparsely populated deserts around Lake Eyre

In 1881 Adelaide became the first Australian capital city to be connected to a water-borne sewerage system. 

Labour settlements were created during the 1890s to trial collective ownership, new farming technology and the high unemployment created by the Depression.

The evolving profession in South Australia retained some centuries-old practices.

Radicalism has been inherent in South Australian history from its founding as a free settlement.  Based upon the English radical liberal thought of its founders, the State's reputation grew as a progressive colony and the first to entirely separate church from state.

South Australia gained a radical, and democratic, Constitution on 24 October 1856.

The Torrens title system for land ownership was inaugurated in South Australia  has led the world in the computerisation of real property title information.