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Western Australia

state of Australia

25 dated entries naming Western Australia, drawn from 24 separate years between 1618 CE and 2020 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 Western Australian in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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17th century

  • 1618July 31 – Lenaert Jacobszoon and the crew of the Dutch East India Company ship Mauritius become the first Europeans to sight what is now the Australian state of Western Australia, landing at the North Cape.source
  • 1629October 2 – In what is now the state of Western Australia, administered at the time by the Dutch East India Company, seven members of the crew of the Batavia are hanged on the Abrolhos Islands for their massacre of 125 passengers and crew.source
  • 1699July 26 – William Dampier's expedition to New Holland (Australia), in HMS Roebuck, reaches Dirk Hartog Island, at the mouth of what he calls Shark Bay in Western Australia, and he begins producing the first known detailed record of Australian flora and fauna.source

18th century

  • 1711August 1 – The Dutch East India Company trading ship Zuytdorp leaves the Netherlands on an ill-fated voyage to Indonesia bearing a load of freshly minted silver coins. The wreck site remains unknown until the mid-20th century, on a remote part of the Western Australian coast between Kalbarri and Shark Bay.source
  • 1712The VOC Zuytdorp is wrecked off the coast of Western Australia.source
  • 179129 September – The West Coast of Australia is claimed by British Commander George Vancouver when he sailed into King George Sound, previously only the east coast had been claimed for the Crown.source

19th century

  • 18298 June – Captain James Stirling founds the Swan River Colony in Western Australia, landing at Garden Island.source
  • 1832February 6 – The Swan River Colony is renamed Western Australia.source
  • 183428 October – The Battle of Pinjarra occurs in the Swan River Colony in present-day Pinjarra, Western Australia. Between 14-40 Aborigines are killed by British colonists.source
  • 183710 June - The first whale is caught in Western Australia.source
  • 18616 July – Robert Palin is hanged in Western Australia following the use of Ordinance 17 Victoria Number 7 to secure the capital punishment of a convict for a crime not normally punishable by death.source
  • 1867October 12 – End of penal transportation from Britain as the last convict ship, the Hougoumont, departs from Portsmouth on an 89-day passage to Western Australia. 62 Fenians are among the transportees.source
  • 18689 January – penal transportation from Britain to Australia ends with arrival of the convict ship Hougoumont in Western Australia after an 89-day voyage from England.source
  • 1868The Flying Foam massacre, a massacre of Indigenous Australians around Flying Foam Passage in Western Australia by white colonial settlers begins and lasts until May.source
  • 1888Excavation begins on the water supply tunnels beneath Fremantle Prison, in Western Australia.source
  • 1894January - A cyclone hits the north west of Western Australia, killing approximately 50 personssource

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
  • 1921March – The Group Settlement Scheme in Western Australia begins.source
  • 19461 May – At least 800 Aboriginal pastoral workers walk off the job in Northwest Western Australia, starting one of the longest industrial strikes in Australia.source
  • 195230 November – Lang Hancock discovers the world's largest deposit of iron ore in the Hamersley Range of Western Australia's Pilbara region.source
  • 19534 December – Oil is discovered in the Exmouth Gulf off the coast of Western Australia.source
  • 196120 January to early March – Disastrous bushfires affect Western Australia, completely destroying a number of towns.source
  • 196831 December – MacRobertson Miller Airlines Flight 1750 crashes south of Port Hedland, Western Australia, killing all 26 people on board.source
  • 1981June 16 – Thomas Playford IV, 84, Australian politician, he was a member of the politically prominent Playford family, he served as the Premier of South Australia from 1938 until 1965, he had the longest tenure in office for a state or territory leader in Australian history; remaining in power for almost 27 years,his economic policies favored industrialization and economic growth, when Playford left office in 1965, South Australia's population had doubled from 600,000 in the late 1930s to 1.1 million, the highest proportionate rate among the states; the state'seconomy had done likewise, and personal wealth had increased at the same rate, second only to Victoria, during Playford's 27 years in power, employment in manufacturing in South Australia had increased by 173%; Western Australia was in second place with 155% growth, while the national average was during the period was 129%, heart attack. Playford had received medical treatment for heart disease since his first heart attack in June 1971source

21st century

  • 2020May 24 – Mining corporation Rio Tinto admits to blowing up the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge caves in the Pilbara area of Western Australia. The firm later issues an apology to the two Aboriginal peoples who are the traditional owners of the site.source

Named in the same entries