Timeline of Australian history

From Freepedia

Image:Australia coa.jpg

This article is part of the series History of Australia

Chronological

Prehistory

Before 1901

After 1901

Timeline

Topical

Exploration

Constitution

Federation

Immigration

Military

States and Territories

Queensland

Tasmania

Victoria

Western Australia

Cities

Adelaide

Brisbane

Canberra

Melbourne

Perth

Sydney

This is a timeline of Australian history.

Contents 1 Prehistory 2 1600s 3 1700s 4 1800s 5 1900s 5.1 1910s 5.2 1920s 5.3 1930s 5.4 1940s 5.5 1950s 5.6 1960s 5.7 1970s 5.8 1980s 5.9 1990s 6 2000s

Prehistory

• 50,000BC: The first inhabitants are thought to have arrived in Australia.
• 42,000BC: Aboriginal engravings dating back to this time have been found in South Australia.
• 35,000BC: Aborigines are thought to have reached the southernmost part of the continent—what is now Tasmania.

1600s

• 1603: The Dutch ship Duyfken, under Captain Willem Janszoon, explores the western coast of Cape York Peninsula). The first recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil.
• 1605: Portuguese seaman Luis Vaez de Torres sails through the Torres Strait (between Australia and New Guinea) along the south coast of New Guinea, and may well have sighted the northernmost extremity of Australia, although this is not recorded.
• 1606: Torres reports 'shoals', some of which may have been the northernmost atolls of the Great Barrier Reef. The name 'Coste Dangereuse', for the tropical Queensland coast, appears on French charts.
• 1616: Dutch captain Dirk Hartog in the Eendracht makes the second recorded landfall by a European, at Dirk Hartog Island on the western coast of Australia. Leaves behind the Hartog plate.
• 1623: Dutch captain Jan Carstensz navigates the Gulf of Carpentaria aboard the Pera and Arnhem. The Arnhem crosses the Gulf to reach and name Groote Eylandt.
• 1642: Dutch explorer Abel Tasman explores the west coast of Tasmania, lands on its east coast and names the island Anton Vandiemenslandt.
• 1688: English explorer William Dampier explores the west coast of Australia.
• 1696: Flemish explorer Willem de Vlamingh charts the southwestern coast of Australia, making landfall at Rottnest Island and the site of the present-day city of Perth.

1700s

• 1770: English Lieutenant James Cook's expedition in HM Bark Endeavour charts the eastern coast.
• 1788: The First Fleet from England under Arthur Phillip arrives in Australia and founds first European settlement and penal colony at Sydney Cove (Sydney).
• 1788: An English settlement is founded at Norfolk Island.
• 1792: Two French ships, La Recherche and L'Espérance, anchor in what was named Recherche Bay, near the southernmost point of Tasmania at a time when England and France were vying to be the first to discover and colonise Australia.

1800s

• 1804: A settlement is founded at Risdon on the Derwent River in Van Diemen's Land by Lt Bowen.
• 1804: Vinegar Hill convict rebellion
• 1804: The settlement is moved to Sullivan's Cove in Van Diemen's Land (now now Hobart in Tasmania) by Colonel David Collins.
• 1806: Matthew Flinders completes the first circumnavigation of the continent.
• 1808: The Rum Rebellion
• 1813: Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth cross the Blue Mountains.
• 1817: John Oxley charts the Lachlan River.
• 1818: Oxley charts the Macquarie River.
• 1824: The city of Brisbane is founded.
• 1824: Bathurst and Melville Islands are annexed.
• 1828: Charles Sturt charts the Darling River.
• 1829: The whole of Australia is claimed as British territory.
• 1830: Sturt arrives at Goolwa, having charted the Murray River.
• 1830 - The city of Perth is founded.
• 1833: The penal settlement of Port Arthur is founded in Van Dieman's Land.
• 1835: John Batman arrives at Port Phillip with the intention of founding a settlement there.
• 1836: Province of South Australia proclaimed
• 1837: The settlement founded by Batman is named Melbourne.
• 1845: Copper is discovered at Burra in South Australia.
• 1850: Western Australia becomes a penal colony.
• 1850: Australia's first university, the University of Sydney, is founded.
• 1851: Victoria separates from New South Wales.
• 1851: The Victorian gold rush starts when gold is found at Summerhill Creek and Ballarat.
• 1854: The Eureka Stockade
• 1855: The transportation of convicts to Norfolk Island ceases.
• 1859: Queensland separates from New South Wales.
• 1860: John McDouall Stuart reaches the centre of the continent.
• 1861: The ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition occurs.
• 1862: Stuart reaches Port Darwin, founding a settlement there.
• 1863: South Australia takes control of the new Northern Territory.
• 1867: The transportation of convicts to Western Australia ceases.
• 1867: Gold is discovered at Gympie, Queensland.
• 1873: Uluru is first sighted by Europeans.
• 1879: The first congress of trade unions is held.
• 1880: Ned Kelly is hanged.
• 1880: Parliamentarians in Victoria become the first parliamentarians in Australia to be paid for their work.
• 1883: The opening of the Sydney-Melbourne railway
• 1883: Silver is discovered at Broken Hill
• 1887: An Australian cricket team is established, defeating Britain in the first Ashes series.
• 1889: The completion of the railway network between Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
• 1889: Sir Henry Parkes delivers the Tenterfield Oration.
• 1890: The Australian Federation Conference calls a constitutional convention.
• 1891: A National Australasian Convention meets, agrees on adopting the name "the Commonwealth of Australia" and drafting a constitution.
• 1891: The first attempt at a federal constitution is drafted.
• 1891: The Convention adopts the constitution, although it has no legal status.
• 1892: Gold is discovered at Coolgardie, Queensland.
• 1893: The Corowa Conference (the "people's convention") calls on the colonial parliaments to pass enabling acts, allowing the election of delegates to a new constitutional convention aimed at drafting a proposal and putting it to a referendum in each colony.
• 1895: The premiers, except for those of Queensland and Western Australia, agree to implement the Corowa proposals.
• 1895: Waltzing Matilda is first sung in public, in Winton, Queensland
• 1895: Banjo Patterson publishes The Man From Snowy River
• 1896: The Bathurst Conference (the second "people's convention") meets to discuss the 1891 draft constitution
• 1897: In two sessions, the Second National Australasian Convention meets (with representatives from all colonies except Queensland present). They agree to adopt a constitution based on the 1891 draft, and then revise and amend it later that year.
• 1898: The Convention agrees on a final draft to be put to the people.
• 1898: After much public debate, the Victorian, South Australian and Tasmanian referenda are successful; the New South Wales referendum narrowly fails.
• 1899: All colonies except Western Australia vote yes in new referenda.
• 1899: The decision is made to site the national capital in New South Wales, but not within 100 miles of Sydney.
• 1899: The Australian Labor Party takes power in Queensland, becoming the first trade union party to do so anywhere in the world.

1900s

• 1900 - Several delegates visit London to resist proposed changes to the agreed-upon constitution
• 1900 - The constitution is passed by the House of Commons and House of Lords as the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, and is given royal assent
• 1901 - Australia becomes an independent nation as of January 1
• 1901 - Edmund Barton becomes Prime Minister; Lord Hopetoun becomes Governor-General
• 1901 - The first parliament meets in Parliament House, Melbourne
• 1902 - The Franchise Act guarantees women the right to vote in federal elections (by this stage, most states had already done this). However, it excludes most non-European ethnic groups, including Aboriginal people.
• 1902 - Breaker Morant is executed for having shot Boers who had surrendered
• 1903 - The High Court of Australia is established
• 1903 - The Defence Act gives the federal government full control over the Australian Army
• 1903 - Alfred Deakin elected Prime Minister
• 1904 - Dalgety chosen as the site for the national capital
• 1906 - Australia takes control of Papua New Guinea
• 1907 - The Commonwealth takes control of the Northern Territory from the South Australian government
• 1908 - Dorothea Mackellar publishes My Country
• 1908 - The Dalgety proposal for the national capital is revoked, and Canberra is chosen instead
• 1909 - The first powered aeroplane flight in Australia is made.

1910s

• 1911 - The Royal Australian Navy is founded
• 1911 - The Northern Territory comes under Commonwealth control, being split off from South Australia
• 1911 - The first national census is conducted
• 1912 - Australia sends women to the Olympic Games for the first time
• 1912 - Walter Burley Griffin wins a design competition for the new city of Canberra
• 1913 - The foundation stone for the city of Canberra is put in place
• 1914 - Australian soldiers are sent to the First World War. This was first time Australians had fought under the Australian flag.
• 1915 - Australian soldiers land at Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey
• 1915 - Surfing is first introduced to Australia
• 1916 - Hotels are forced to close at 6pm, leading to the beginning of the "six o'clock swill"
• 1916 - The Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia, the forerunner to the Returned and Services League is founded
• 1916 - First referendum on conscription
• 1917 - Third referendum on conscription

1920s

• 1920 - The airline QANTAS is founded
• 1921 - Edith Cowan becomes the first woman elected to an Australian parliament
• 1922 - The Smith Family charity is founded in Sydney
• 1923 - Vegemite is first produced
• 1926 - The first Miss Australia contest is held
• 1927 - The tenth parliament is formally opened in Canberra, finalising the move to the new capital
• 1928 - Bert Hinkler makes the first successful flight to Britain, and Charles Kingsford Smith the first flight to the United States

1930s

• 1930 - Don Bradman scores a record 452 not out in one cricket innings
• 1930 - Phar Lap wins its first Melbourne Cup
• 1931 - Sir Douglas Mawson charts 4,000 miles of Antarctic coastline and claims 42% of the icy mass for Australia
• 1932 - The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens
• 1933 - Western Australia produces a referendum for secession but it is rejected by Parliament.
• 1936 - The last Thylacine dies
• 1937 - The radio series Dad and Dave begins
• 1938 - Sydney hosts the Empire Games, the forerunner to the Commonwealth Games
• 1939 - Australia enters the Second World War
• 1939 - The first flight is made by an Australian-made warplane, the Wirraway
• 1939 - Victoria is devastated by the Black Friday bushfires.

1940s

• 1940 - A team of scientists, under Howard Florey, develops penicillin
• 1942-43 - Japanese planes make almost 100 attacks against sites in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland. (See also: Japanese air attacks on Australia, 1942-43.)
• 1942 - Daylight saving is introduced
• 1943 - Australia wins its first Oscar, with cinematographer Damien Parer being rewarded for his coverage of the war
• 1944 - The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is introduced, providing subsidised medicine to all Australians
• 1945 - Australia becomes a founding member of the United Nations
• 1945 - The Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race is held for the first time
• 1946 - Minister for Immigration Arthur Calwell introduces the major post-war immigration scheme
• 1946 - An Australian is voted in as the first President of the United Nations Security Council.
• 1948 - Australian Minister for External Affairs, Dr. H.V. Evatt is elected President of the United Nations General Assembly.
• 1948 - Australia becomes a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• 1949 - Construction of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme begins
• 1949 - Indigenous Australians who are eligible to vote in State Elections in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania are also given the right to vote in Federal Elections.
• 1949 - The Nationality and Citizenship Act is passed. Rather than being identified as subjects of Britain, the Act established Australian citizenship for people who met eligibility requirements.

1950s

• 1950 - Australian troops are sent to the Korean War, as well as to fight a communist insurgency in Malaya
• 1951 - Australia signs the ANZUS treaty with the United States and New Zealand
• 1954 - The Petrov Affair occurs
• 1954 - Hotels no longer have to close at 6pm, ending the "six o’clock swill"
• 1954 - Elizabeth II and Prince Philip make a royal visit.
• 1956 - Melbourne holds the Summer Olympics
• 1959 - The Sidney Myer Music Bowl is opened
• 1959 - Australia becomes a signatory to the International Antarctic Treaty

1960s

• 1962 - Indigenous Australians gain the right to vote; Australia enters the Vietnam War

• 1964 - The Beatles tour Australia; 82 sailors die when HMAS Voyager sinks after being rammed by HMAS Melbourne; the editors of OZ magazine are charged with obscenity; PM Robert Menzies announces the reintroduction of compulsory military service for men 18-25

• 1965 -

• 1966 - The ban on the employment of married women in the Commonwealth Public Service is lifted; Robert Menzies retires as Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister

• 1967 - large areas of Hobart and south-eastern Tasmania are devastated by bushfires on 7 February that kill 62 people; PM Harold Holt drowns; Aboriginal Australians gain the right to citizenship after a referendum to allow the federal government to legislate for them is supported by over 90% of the population; Sydney is rocked by a series of brutal underworld killings; talkback radio is introduced; British comedian Tony Hancock commits suicide in Sydney;

• 1968 - Australia signs the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; Aboriginal boxing champion Lionel Rose defeats Masahiko "Fighting" Harada in Japan to become the world bantamweight champion; Australia's first liver transplant operation is performed in Sydney;

• 1969 - French conceptual artist Christo 'wraps' Little Bay in Sydney; renowned author-artists Norman Lindsay and May Gibbs die; the Australian production of the rock musical Hair premieres in Sydney; top pop groups The Easybeats and The Twilights break up; Tim Burstall directs2000 Weeks, the first all-Australian feature released since Charles Chauvel's Jedda in 1958

1970s

• 1970 - More than 200,000 people participate in the largest demonstrations in Australian history, against the Vietnam War
• 1971 - Neville Bonner becomes the first Aboriginal to become an Australian Member of Parliament
• 1972 - The Commonwealth Arbitration Commission rules that women doing the same job as men have the right to be paid the same wage.
• 1972 - First Labor Govt since 1949 is elected under the leadership of Gough Whitlam
• 1972 - Australia recognises the People's Republic of China
• 1973 - The Sydney Opera House is opened
• 1973 - The federal voting age is dropped from 21 to 18
• 1973 - Unionists save the historic "The Rocks" area of Sydney from demolition by introducing "green bans"
• 1973 - Patrick White becomes the first Australian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature
• 1974 - Darwin is devastated by Cyclone Tracy
• 1975 - A constitutional crisis occurs when Malcolm Fraser's opposition blocks supply, bringing the nation to a standstill until Governor-General John Kerr controversially sacks Prime Minister Gough Whitlam
• 1977 - Advance Australia Fair becomes Australia's official national anthem
• 1979 - Australian women win the right to maternity leave
• 1979 - Kakadu National Park and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park are both proclaimed.

1980s

• 1980 - The Australia Act ends the right of appeal to the British Privy Council, making the High Court the final destination of appeal.
• 1983 - Australia wins the America's Cup
• 1985 - The government grants the freehold title of a large area of land in central Australia, including prominent landmarks Uluru and Kata Tjuta, to the Mutitjulu people, who in turn give them a 99-year lease
• 1987 - Hoddle Street Massacre kills 7 victims and injures 19
• 1987 - Queen Street Massacre kills 8 victims and injures 5
• 1988 - Australia celebrates its bicentenary, with large celebrations and major funding for capital works projects
• 1988 - The new Parliament House opens
• 1989 - A 5.6 magnitude earthquake strikes Newcastle on 28 December. This was Australia's most serious natural disaster to date, killing 13 and injuring more than 160 people.

1990s

• 1991 - Bob Hawke becomes the first sitting Prime Minister to be dumped in a leadership challenge, and is replaced by Paul Keating
• 1991 - Seven people die in the Strathfield massacre
• 1991 - Prominent heart surgeon Victor Chang is gunned down
• 1991 - The Coode Island chemical storage facility in Melbourne explodes, leaving a toxic cloud hanging over the city for days
• 1992 - The Sydney Harbour Tunnel opens
• 1992 - New South Wales Premier Nick Greiner resigns after a corruption inquiry finds against him
• 1993 - The High Court delivers the Mabo Decision, which rules that indigenous native title does exist. This effectively extinguishes the concept of terra nullius.
• 1993 - Paul Keating defeats John Hewson in an election that had been widely described as being "unwinnable" for him; the Australian Greens stand candidates for the first time
• 1995 - The Northern Territory legalises voluntary euthanasia, but it is overruled by the federal government when Liberal MP Kevin Andrews proposes the Andrews Bill
• 1996 - The High Court hands down the Wik Decision, which holds that indigenous native title can survive the granting of pastoral leases.
• 1996 - John Howard becomes Prime Minister, defeating Paul Keating
• 1996 - All Australian states and territories agree to introduce uniform gun laws following the deaths of 35 people in the Port Arthur Massacre
• 1997 - Controversial right-wing MP Pauline Hanson forms the One Nation Party
• 1997 - Eighteen people die when the Bimbadene and Carinya Lodges collapse at Thredbo Alpine Village at 11.30pm on 30 July
• 1998 - A major strike results when Patrick Stevedores attempt to introduce non-union labour to reduce the influence of the Maritime Union of Australia
• 1998 - The Australian Stock Exchange is demutualised and floated as a public company, becoming the world’s first stock exchange to be listed on an exchange.
• 1999 - Both houses of the federal parliament pass a motion signifying both recognition of and regret at past treatment of indigenous Australians.
• 1999 - A referendum on changing to a republic is unsuccessful
• 1999 - Australian soldiers are deployed to East Timor as part of the INTERFET peacekeeping force

2000s

• 2000 - Sydney holds the Summer Olympics
• 2001 - The Tampa affair and Children overboard affair occur amidst a crackdown on refugees
• 2002 - On 12 October, 2002 a bomb in a Bali nightclub kills 202 people, including 88 Australians.
• 2004 - A bomb explodes outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia.
• 2004 - John Howard wins his fourth term in office after defeating Mark Latham in the election