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Melbourne

capital city of Victoria, Australia

55 dated entries naming Melbourne, drawn from 43 separate years between 1835 CE and 2006 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.

Also written as Melbourne, Victoria in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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19th century

  • 18356 June – Batman's Treaty is created between John Batman and Wurundjeri elders to secure the land around Port Phillip Bay for the establishment of Melbourne. The treaty was later declared void by the Governor of New South Wales, Richard Bourke.source
  • 1835August 30 – European settlers, landing on the north banks of the Yarra River in Victoria, Australia, found the settlement of Melbourne.source
  • 183529 December – Mary Gilbert gives birth to her son, James Port Phillip Gilbert, the first European child born in the Port Phillip settlement of Melbourne.source
  • 18371 June - First inner-city land sale in Melbourne.source
  • 1840January 3 – One of the predecessor papers of the Herald Sun of Melbourne, Australia, The Port Phillip Herald, is founded.source
  • 18516 February – The Black Thursday bushfires rage from Mount Gambier to Melbourne. Fires covered a quarter of what is now the state of Victoria, approximately 50,000 km 2 . Areas affected include Portland, the Plenty Ranges to the north of Melbourne, Westernport, the Wimmera and Dandenong districts. Approximately 12 people died, one million sheep and thousands of cattle were lost.source
  • 185210 February – the Supreme Court of Victoria sits for the first time in Melbourne.source
  • 1854March 3 – Australia's first telegraph line, linking Melbourne and Williamstown, Victoria, opens.source
  • 1854October 17 – The Age newspaper is founded in Melbourne, Australia.source
  • 185516 February – emigrant ship Tornado sails from Broomielaw in Glasgow with 500 settlers bound for Melbourne.source
  • 1856Switzerland opens a diplomatic consulate in Melbourne, Australiasource
  • 1856April 21 – Building workers agitate for the eight-hour day in Melbourne, Australia.source
  • 1861November 5 – The first Melbourne Cup horse race is held in Melbourne, Australia.source
  • 186610 October – Dandenong Market opens in South-East Melbourne.source
  • 186624 October – The Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia opens in Melbourne.source
  • 186812 March – Henry James O'Farrell fires a revolver into the back of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (second son of Queen Victoria) while the latter is picnicking in the beachfront suburb of Clontarf. It was Australia's first attempted political assassination. O'Farrell first claimed that he was acting under instruction from Melbourne Fenians but later retracted the claims. He had problems with alcoholism and mental illness.source
  • 1874May 23 – Passenger ship British Admiral, on a voyage from Liverpool (England) to Melbourne (Australia), sinks after hitting rocks off King Island (Tasmania); only nine of the 88 passengers and crew are rescued.source
  • 18788 January – The telephone is used for the first time in Australia in Melbourne.source
  • 1880November 11 – Australian bushranger and bank robber Ned Kelly is hanged in Melbourne.source
  • 1881April 25 – Caulfield Grammar School is founded in Melbourne, Australia.source
  • 188314 June – A rail service between Sydney and Melbourne commences when the NSW and Victorian rail systems are joined at Albury.source
  • 1885February 20 – The Richmond Football Club is officially formed at the Royal Hotel in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, Victoria.source
  • 1892June 11 – The Limelight Department, later one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.source
  • 1898March 16 – In Melbourne the representatives of five colonies adopt a constitution which will become the basis of the Commonwealth of Australia.source

20th century

  • 1901May 9 – The first Australian Parliament opens in Melbourne.source
  • 1903November 28 – SS Petriana is wrecked on a reef outside Melbourne, Australia, causing one of the world's first major oil spills.source
  • 19065 May – The first electric trams begin running in Melbourne from St Kilda to Brighton.source
  • 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.source
  • 1908April 20 – Sunshine rail disaster: A rear-end collision of two trains in Melbourne, Australia kills 44 people and injures more than 400.source
  • 19088 October – The capital of Australia is chosen, settling a feud between rivals Melbourne and Sydney.source
  • 191416 July – Maurice Guillaux leaves Melbourne to fly to Sydney in a Blériot monoplane in the first delivery of airmail. He arrived in Sydney on 18 July after nine and a half hours of flying time.source
  • 19186 October – Australia's first electric train service begins, between Newmarket and Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne.source
  • 192130 December – Twelve-year-old Alma Tirtschke is raped and murdered in Melbourne, in what becomes known as the Gun Alley Murder.source
  • 1922September 11 – The Sun News-Pictorial, a predecessor of the Melbourne, Australia, Herald Sun, is founded.source
  • 1923November 1 – The 1923 Victorian Police strike begins in Australia, with half of the Victoria Police force standing down over the use of labor spies. Rioting and looting take place in Melbourne city centre.source
  • 19273 May – The Australasian Council of Trade Unions is formed at the All-Australian Trade Union Congress in Melbourne.source
  • 1927May 9 – The Australian Parliament convenes for the first time in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. Previously, the Parliament had met in Melbourne, Victoria.source
  • 193121 March – The Australian National Airways aircraft Southern Cloud, carrying 8 persons, disappears on a flight between Sydney and Melbourne. The wreckage is not located until 1958.source
  • 1934October 20–November 5 – The MacRobertson Air Race is flown from RAF Mildenhall in England to Melbourne, Australia, to celebrate the centenary of the state of Victoria. The overall winner is the British de Havilland DH.88 Comet G-ACSS Grosvenor House, flown by C. W. A. Scott and Tom Campbell Black.source
  • 193411 November – The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne is dedicated.source
  • 194026 October – Double-decker buses replace the last cable trams in Melbourne.source
  • 1955December 19 – Australian comedian Barry Humphries first introduces his character Edna Everage on stage in Melbourne.source
  • 195611-17 June - The country stages the Equestrian events in the 1956 Summer Olympics because of problems with quarantine laws affecting the host city of Melbournesource
  • 1956June 10 – 1956 Summer Olympics: Equestrian events open in Stockholm, Sweden (all other events are held in November in Melbourne, Australia).source
  • 1956November 22 – The 1956 Summer Olympics begin in Melbourne, Australia.source
  • 195622 November-8 December – Malaya competed for the first time in 1956 Olympic Games at Melbourne, Australia. 32 competitors, 31 men and 1 woman, took part in 13 events in 5 sports.source
  • 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.source
  • 1967December 17 – Harold Holt, 17th Prime Minister of Australia, disappears when swimming at Cheviot Beach, 60 km from Melbourne. He was briefly replaced as prime minister by John McEwen, until the Liberal Party elected Minister for Education and Science John Gorton as leader.source
  • 1970October 15 – A section of the new West Gate Bridge in Melbourne collapses into the river below, killing 35 construction workers.source
  • 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.source
  • 1976April 21 – The Great Bookie Robbery in Melbourne, Australia: Bandits steal A$1.4 million in bookmakers' settlements from Queen Street, Melbourne.source
  • 1978October 21 – Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 Skylane over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.source
  • 1986August 19 – Two weeks after it was stolen, the Picasso painting The Weeping Woman is found in a locker at the Spencer Street Station in Melbourne, Australia.source
  • 1987August 9 – Hoddle Street massacre in Australia: Julian Knight, 19, goes on a shooting rampage in the Melbourne suburb of Clifton Hill, Victoria, killing 7 people and injuring 19 before surrendering to police.source

21st century

  • 2006March - Nigeria was represented at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.source

Named in the same entries