/year

Australia

996 entries quoted from the Wikipedia articles written per year for Australia, 1788 CE to 2017 CE. Each century below shows a sample spread across it; the year link on a line opens everything held for that year.

18th century

121 entries, 1788 CE to 1799 CE — 25 shown, spread across the century

  • 178826 January – After Botany Bay was decided unsuitable for settlement, the First Fleet sails to Port Jackson and lands at Sydney Cove to establish a settlement (which becomes Sydney).Australiasource
  • 178814 February – HMS Supply leaves Sydney Cove to establish a settlement on Norfolk Island.Australiasource
  • 17885 June – All the settlement's cattle brought from Cape Town escape; they are not recaptured until November 1795.Australiasource
  • 178912 June – Phillip leads an expedition to Broken Bay (departed from Sydney on the 6th), and discovers the Hawkesbury River.Australiasource
  • 1789April – An outbreak of smallpox at the Sydney Cove settlement kills many local Eora Aboriginals, including Arabanoo.Australiasource
  • 178918 May – Arabanoo, cultural mediator between the British settlers and Eora AboriginalsAustraliasource
  • 17903 June – The Lady Juliana arrives in Port Jackson – the first ship to land on Australian soil since the First Fleet. Much to the colonists' despair, she contains no fresh supplies, only more convicts.Australiasource
  • 179013 August – William Wentworth, explorer and politician (died 1872)Australiasource
  • 1791March – Philip Gidley King returns to Norfolk Island from Britain and resumes command from Robert Ross.Australiasource
  • 179210 December – With the colony beginning to flourish, Phillip is granted leave and permitted to return to England. He leaves on the Atlantic, taking Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne with him, and retires to a quiet life in Bath. While the British government decides on a replacement, Francis Grose (the commanding officer of the New South Wales Corps) takes control as Acting Governor.Australiasource
  • 1792Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island – Philip Gidley KingAustraliasource
  • 179328 February – d'Entrecasteaux expedition leaves Tasmania towards the Friendly Islands, continuing the search for La Pérouse.Australiasource
  • 179316 February – John Macarthur is appointed by Grose as inspector of public works.Australiasource
  • 179417 December – Grose leaves New South Wales for England. His positions as acting governor and commander of the New South Wales Corps are both filled by William Paterson.Australiasource
  • 179410 November – Robert Towns, master mariner (died 1873)Australiasource
  • 1795Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island – Philip Gidley KingAustraliasource
  • 1795? - A tornado strikes Sydney, destroying crops and trees in the early settlement, 1st tornado recorded in the BOM's severe weather archives.Australiasource
  • 1796Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island – Philip Gidley KingAustraliasource
  • 1796Inspector of Public Works – John Macarthur/Richard AtkinsAustraliasource
  • 17979 February – Sydney Cove wrecked off Tasmania. Some of the crew manage to reach Sydney more than 600 km away, leading to the rescue of other members of the crew.Australiasource
  • 179719 September – John Shortland is the first European to enter the port of Newcastle. On the 9th he discovered the Hunter River estuary and coal.Australiasource
  • 179825 February – John Hunter names Bass Strait in honour of George Bass.Australiasource
  • 179822 December – Norfolk enters the River Derwent,Australiasource
  • 17995 November – Hunter is recalled and Philip Gidley King is named as his successorAustraliasource
  • 1799Governor of New South Wales – John HunterAustraliasource

19th century

517 entries, 1800 CE to 1899 CE — 25 shown, spread across the century

  • 180019 November – The first copper coins are circulated in New South Wales. To prevent their removal from the colony they were issued at double their face value, that is a coin valued at one penny in England was deemed to represent twopence in New South Wales.Australiasource
  • 18032 February – Charles Grimes discovered the Yarra River.Australiasource
  • 18082 February – William Paterson sails to Sydney from Port Dalrymple, Van Diemen's Land to take over the administration of New South Wales following the removal of Bligh.Australiasource
  • 18144 February – The Governors Court is established by Letters Patent dated 4 February 1814 issued by King George III. The court had jurisdiction over civil claims in New South Wales.Australiasource
  • 181913 May - Margaret Catchpole, Adventuress and chronicler.Australiasource
  • 182315 February – Surveyor James McBrien at the Fish River near Bathurst discovers gold. It is the first known report of gold, though it is not made public, the Australian gold rushes do not begin until 1851.Australiasource
  • 1828Australia's first postman, a private servant of George Panton, is appointed Sydney Postmaster.Australiasource
  • 18331 May – Yagan and Midgegoroo are proclaimed as outlaws for killing two whites at Canning; Yagan is killed in JulyAustraliasource
  • 18381 December - The first annual Hobart Regatta is held.Australiasource
  • 184221 August – Hobart Town is proclaimed a city.Australiasource
  • 1844Penfolds winery is established in Adelaide by Christopher Rawson Penfold & Mary Penfold.Australiasource
  • 1849May – A clash between European settlers and Aboriginal Australians resulted in the Waterloo Bay massacre.Australiasource
  • 185210 February – the Supreme Court of Victoria sits for the first time in Melbourne.Australiasource
  • 185512 June – the Victorian parliament passed the Chinese Restriction Act in an effort to restrict Chinese immigration. These restrictions, including a £10 poll tax on Chinese and a limit to Chinese passengers per tonnage of shipping.Australiasource
  • 186020 August – Burke and Wills expedition sets off from Royal Park, Melbourne at about 4 p.m. watched by around 15,000 spectators.Australiasource
  • 18641 October – The Australasian (later to be known as Australasian Post) is first published in Melbourne.Australiasource
  • 186610 October – Dandenong Market opens in South-East Melbourne.Australiasource
  • 186918 October – The Lithgow Zig Zag Railway was opened.Australiasource
  • 187330 December – Elizabeth Woolcock is hanged at the Adelaide Gaol, the only woman to be executed in South Australia.Australiasource
  • 187616 February – The community of Bowen was struck by an F5 tornado that caused £7000 of damage, injured numerous people and had one confirmed casualty.Australiasource
  • 187914 April – The first use of a parachute in Australia occurs when Henri L 'Estrange's balloon ruptures above Melbourne's Agricultural Showgrounds.Australiasource
  • 1884October – Billy Hughes migrated to Australia.Australiasource
  • 188722 April – A cyclone hits a pearling fleet off Eighty Mile Beach, 120 men drown.Australiasource
  • 189223 May – Frederick Deeming hanged at Melbourne Gaol having been unsuccessfully defended by the lawyer Alfred Deakin. Deeming was accused of committing a series of crimes on three continents – theft, perjury, fraud, bigamy and murder; he used at least 20 aliases.Australiasource
  • 18958 August - The steamship SS Catterthun strikes Seal Rocks, NSW, and founders, killing 55 personsAustraliasource

20th century

355 entries, 1900 CE to 1999 CE — 25 shown, spread across the century

  • 190017 October – Natural gas is found at Roma in QueenslandAustraliasource
  • 190231 July – A coal gas explosion kills 96 in the Mount Kembla mining disasterAustraliasource
  • 190412 January – Melbourne businessman Alfred Felton leaves a large bequest to the Art Gallery of Victoria.Australiasource
  • 190626 December – The national premiere of The Story of the Kelly Gang, generally regarded as the world's first feature length film, takes place at the Athenaeum Hall in Melbourne.Australiasource
  • 190930 April – Tasmania begins to use the Hare-Clark single transferable vote method in the 1909 general election.Australiasource
  • 191224 April – The NSW government grants 43 acres of land for the construction of a zoological garden, later known as Taronga Park.Australiasource
  • 191414 September – The Australian submarine HMAS AE1 lost with all 35 men while patrolling New Britain.Australiasource
  • 191712 December – The Royal Australian Navy battlecruiser HMAS Australia is damaged in a collision with the British cruiser HMS Repulse.Australiasource
  • 1921March – Group Settlement Scheme begins at Manjimup, Western Australia.Australiasource
  • 19251 September – Thomas Blamey becomes Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police.Australiasource
  • 1928Arthur Streeton wins the Wynne Prize with his landscape Afternoon Light, Goulburn ValleyAustraliasource
  • 193118 February – The Royal Australian Navy light cruiser HMAS Pioneer is scuttled off Sydney Heads.Australiasource
  • 193415 November – Qantas de Havilland DH86 crashes after departing from Longreach Airport during its delivery flight.Australiasource
  • 193715 February – An explosion kills 13 men at the State Coal Mine in Wonthaggi, Victoria.Australiasource
  • 194130 June – HMAS Waterhen sinks off Libya – the first Australian naval vessel lost in the war.Australiasource
  • 1946New Zealand defeats Australia 2–0 in a Rugby union testAustraliasource
  • 194910 March – A Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar crashes near Coolangatta, Queensland, killing all 21 on board.Australiasource
  • 19534 December – Oil is discovered in the Exmouth Gulf off the coast of Western Australia.Australiasource
  • 195814 January – Qantas Airways introduces a round-the-world air service from Australia to London.Australiasource
  • 1962Bledisloe Cup: retained by the All BlacksAustraliasource
  • 196527 April – Police raid Melbourne's Austral Bookshop and seize copies of The Trial of Lady Chatterley, a banned book which recounts of the British obscenity trial of author D. H. Lawrence.Australiasource
  • 196717 December – Prime Minister Harold Holt disappears while swimming in heavy surf at Cheviot Beach, near Portsea, Victoria.Australiasource
  • 197229 July – Kerry Anne Wells earned Australia's first Miss Universe crown, in Dorado, Puerto Rico.Australiasource
  • 19783 January – Bela Csidei, a prominent Sydney businessman, is alleged in the Darwin Magistrates' Court to have been involved in growing marijuana in the Northern Territory.Australiasource
  • 198512 October – Canon Arthur Malcolm becomes the first Aboriginal Bishop in Australia.Australiasource

21st century

3 entries, 2002 CE to 2017 CE

  • 20025 April – At the Council of Australian Governments Meeting in Canberra, Prime Minister John Howard concedes ground to the States on human embryo research.Australiasource
  • 20105 April – Arisa Trew, skateboarderAustraliasource
  • 20173 June – Two Australian women—a 21-year-old from Queensland and a 28-year-old from South Australia—are killed in a terrorist attack in London. Four Australians were also among the 48 injured.Australiasource