/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 (d. 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 (d. 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

519 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
  • 18201 December – Campbelltown, New South Wales is established.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
  • 18341 January – The Western Australian Police Force is formed.Australiasource
  • 183913 April – Albury is proclaimed a villageAustraliasource
  • 184221 August – Hobart Town is proclaimed a city.Australiasource
  • 1845South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register is first published, 5 July 1845.Australiasource
  • 184926 January – The Australasian Anti-Transportation League is formed during a public meeting at Launceston, Tasmania; later branches were formed in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, and Canterbury (New Zealand).Australiasource
  • 18524 July – Anti-Chinese riots occur in Victoria, Australia.Australiasource
  • 185531 December – Sir Charles Hotham, 1st Governor of Victoria (born in the United Kingdom) (b. 1806)Australiasource
  • 186012 November – The Victorian College for the Deaf is opened in a small house in Peel Street Windsor.Australiasource
  • 18644 May – The first trout hatchery in the southern hemisphere is established at Plenty, Tasmania.Australiasource
  • 186619 March – Sister Mary MacKillop founds the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart at Penola, South Australia.Australiasource
  • 18699 January – The British clipper ship Thermopylae arrives in Melbourne, having sailed from London in the record time of 64 days.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
  • 188330 January – England defeats Australia 2–1 in the 1882–83 Test cricket series, reclaiming "The Ashes" of English cricket.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

354 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
  • 191215 July – The first branches of the Commonwealth Bank open in Melbourne and country Victoria. The Prime Minister, Andrew Fisher, is the bank's first account holder and depositor.Australiasource
  • 19141 November – The first contingent of the First Australian Imperial Force leaves for Egypt.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
  • 192827–28 January – Bundaberg tragedy: 12 children die in Bundaberg, Queensland, after being inoculated with a diphtheria vaccine contaminated with the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium.Australiasource
  • 193112 September - South Sydney 12 defeat Eastern Suburbs 7 for their tenth NSWRL premiershipAustraliasource
  • 19343 October – Qantas de Havilland DH.50 Atalanta, registration VH-UHE, crashes near Winton, Queensland, killing the pilot and 2 passengers.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
  • 194618 February – The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Norman Gilroy, becomes Cardinal Gilroy, the first Australian born member of the College of CardinalsAustraliasource
  • 194916 March – Australia's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is established, by order of the Directive for the Establishment and Maintenance of a Security Service.Australiasource
  • 19523 October – The first British nuclear test in Australia, Operation Hurricane, commences on the Monte Bello Islands with the detonation of an atomic bomb of 25 kilotons yield.Australiasource
  • 195814 January – Qantas Airways introduces a round-the-world air service from Australia to London.Australiasource
  • 196216 July – The Goulburn School Strike started. This was an education strike in Goulburn, New South Wales, where, in response to a demand for the installation of three extra toilets at a local Catholic Primary School, the local community closed down these schools and sent the children to the Government schools. The Catholic Church declared they had no money to install the extra toilets. Nearly 1,000 children turned up to be enrolled locally and the state schools were unable to accommodate them. In 1963, Menzies made State aid for science blocks part of his party's platform in response to the public debate engendered by the Goulburn strike.Australiasource
  • 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
  • 19744 February – The Federal Minister for Labour, Mr Cameron, meets officials of the Australian Bank Officials Association in Melbourne in an effort to break the deadlock in the bank dispute. The association decides to lift is week-old ban on handling commercial cheques.Australiasource
  • 197911 April – The Razorback Blockade, a truck drivers' blockade, which had disrupted the eastern states for 10 days, ends. The truck drivers had been protesting against state road taxes and low cartage rates.Australiasource
  • 198530 December – Rural discontent at soaring interest rates and falling commodity prices is symbolised by a Canowindra farmer when he dumps 23 tonnes of wheat outside Parliament House in Canberra. His subsequent prosecution prompts a mass rally of up to 8,000 famers in Canberra on 14 February 1986.Australiasource

21st century

2 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
  • 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