Thursday Island 1977 Islands Industries Board, Thursday Island do not think that many people have been to Thursday Island. It is in the Torres Straits and is so called because it was discovered on a Thursday by Captain Cook. I went there since they told me in Sydney that it was the last place God ever made. They said there was nothing to see and warned me that I should probably get my throat cut." So begins the story "French Joe" as told by the master of story-telling, W. Somerset Maugham. Maugham visited Thursday Island in the course of his second Far Eastern trip in 1919. I came to Thursday Island in 1977.