Australia

country in Oceania

39 dated entries naming Australia, drawn from 35 separate years between 1606 CE and 2025 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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17th century

1606February 26 – Sailing on the Dutch ship Duyfken, Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon and the crew make the first confirmed sighting of Australia by a European, reaching the Cape York Peninsula, at the Pennefather River near what becomes Weipa, Queensland. The Duyfken follows by exploring the western coast.source
1644January 30 – Dutch explorer Abel Tasman departs from Batavia in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Jakarta in Indonesia) on his second major expedition for the Dutch East India Company, to map the north coast of Australia. Tasman commands three ships, Limmen, Zeemeeuw and Braek, and returns to Batavia at the beginning of August with no major discoveries.source
1688January 5 – Pirates Charles Swan and William Dampier and the crew of the privateer Cygnet become the first Englishmen to set foot on the continent of Australia.source

18th century

1770April 18 (April 19 by Cook's log) 18:00 – First voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain James Cook and his crew become the first recorded Europeans to encounter the eastern coastline of the Australian continent. Land is sighted at Point Hicks, and named after Lieutenant Hicks who first observes landform at 6am.source

19th century

1823February 15 (approx.) – The first officially recognised gold is found in Australia, by surveyor James McBrien at Fish River, near Bathurst, New South Wales, predating the Australian gold rushes.source
1824September 26 – The earliest reference by the British government to an official renaming of its South Pacific Ocean territory as "Australia" comes in a dispatch titled "Taking Possession of Melville and Bathurst Islands", as the Admiral Sir Gordon Bremer refers to "the North Coast of New Holland or Australia".source
1833August 31 – The chartered ship Amphitrite sinks off Boulogne-sur-Mer while transporting 108 British female convicts and 12 children from Woolwich in England to New South Wales in what is now Australia. All of the passengers die, along with 13 of the 16 crew, leaving 3 survivors.source
1840March 12 – Paweł Strzelecki reaches Australia's highest summit, Mount Kosciuszko.source
1855May 1 – Van Diemen's Land is separated administratively from the Australian province of New South Wales and granted self-government.source
1872July 19 – Explorer William Gosse reaches Uluru in central Australia and names it Ayers Rock.source
1880June 28 – Australian police capture bank robber Ned Kelly, after a gun battle at Glenrowan, Victoria.source
1885July 16 – BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary), a worldwide mining and natural gas producer is founded in New South Wales, Australia.source
1897January 7 – A cyclone destroys Darwin, Australia.source
1899April 24 – The Scottish ship Loch Sloy is wrecked off the coast of Australia's Kangaroo Island, drowning 32 people on board.source

20th century

1901January 1 – The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton becomes the first Prime Minister of Australia.source
1913March 20 – The city of Canberra, the centre of the Australian Capital Territory, becomes the official capital of the Commonwealth of Australia.source
1952February 6 – Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the British Dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon. The princess, who is on a visit to Kenya when she hears of the death of her father, King George VI, aged 56, takes the regnal name Elizabeth II.source
1966May 25 – No. 9 Squadron RAAF becomes part of the 4,500 strong Australian Task Force assigned to duties in Vietnam, leaving for Southeast Asia aboard the aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney.source
1968January 31 – Nauru president Hammer DeRoburt declares independence from Australia, Britain and New Zealand.source
1970April 21 – The Principality of Hutt River "secedes" from Australia (it remained unrecognised by Australia and other nations, and is dissolved in 2020).source
1975October 31 – The Racial Discrimination Act 1975 takes effect in Australia.source
1976January 16 – A locomotive crashes into the rear of a commuter train in Glenbrook, Australia, killing one person onboard and injuring ten others in the 1976 Glenbrook rail accident.source
1985February 5 – Australia cancels its involvement in U.S.-led MX missile tests.source
1989August 13 – 1989 Alice Springs hot air balloon crash: An accident near Alice Springs, Australia kills thirteen people.source
1996March 17 – Sri Lanka wins the Cricket World Cup by beating Australia in the final.source
1998May 26 – Australia holds its first National Sorry Day.source
1999June 20 – Australia defeats Pakistan by 8 wickets at Lord's Cricket Ground in London in the 1999 Cricket World Cup Final, securing their second World Cup title.source

21st century

2003July 24 – The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, led by Australia, begins after ethnic violence engulfs the island country.source
2011February 26 – The Nintendo 3DS has its first release in Japan, following later releases in Europe on March 25, North America on March 27, and Australia on March 31.source
2018March 25 – Qantas launches direct non-stop Boeing 787 Dreamliner flights between Perth Airport and Heathrow Airport, making it the first commercially non-stop service between Australia and the United Kingdom.source
2020December 20 – COVID-19 pandemic: A highly infectious new strain of SARS-CoV-2 spreading in Europe and Australia provokes international border closures.source
2020November 19 – The Brereton Report into Australian war crimes during the War in Afghanistan is released.source
2021December 6 – The United States announces a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing in response to China's human rights record. Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia join shortly after.source
2022December 2 – The G7 and Australia join the EU in imposing a cap of $60 a barrel on Russian crude oil, designed to "prevent Russia from profiting from its war of aggression against Ukraine."source
2022January 1 – The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the largest free trade area in the world, comes into effect for Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.source
2022September 22 – October 1 – The 2022 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup is held in Sydney, Australia. In the final, the United States wins 83–61 against China.source
2023July 20–August 20 – The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is held in Australia and New Zealand. In the final, Spain wins 1–0 against England.source
2023November 10 – In the Falepili Union treaty, Australia grants "special" freedom of movement and defence rights to Tuvaluans for residence and employment for climate reasons.source
2025September 21 – The UK, Canada, and Australia announce their formal recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state, with France also doing so the next day.source