Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 1.

180 million years ago: The ancient supercontinent called Gondwana broke up about 180 million years ago. The continent, over time, split into: Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula.

Gondwana 420 million years ago. View centred on the South Pole. Fama Clamosa

146-65 million years ago: During the Cretaceous period, Australia was located close to the South Pole and joined to Antarctica, New Zealand and South America, forming the last remnant of the great southern-landmass called Gondwana. Australia was covered by an inland ocean, and Conifer forests covered much of land on which dinosaurs walked.

Reconstructed skeleton at the Queensland Museum. PD.

50,000 years ago: According to the analysis of maternal genetic lineages (mitochondrial DNA), Aboriginal people arrived in Australia around 50,000 years ago.

An Aboriginal tribe in the interior, South Australia, United States Navy, August-September, 1908, Special Collections

46,000 years ago: Most forms of megafauna on the Australian mainland became extinct in the same rapid timeframe—approximately 46,000 years ago.

The restoration of a marsupial lion hunting Diprotodon, Rom-diz

1521?: A theory exists that Portuguese navigators were the first Europeans to sight Australia between 1521 and 1524. Other claims have been made for China (Admiral Zheng), France, Spain, and even, Phoenicia. There is general disagreement and the evidence remains contentious.

1606: Captain Willem Janszoon of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), sailing the ship Duyfken, explored the western coast of Cape York Peninsula near, what is now Weipa, in February/March 1606. This was the first recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil.

Duyfken replica - Swan River, Western Australia. Nachoman-au

1606: Luís Vaz de Torres, who was either Portuguese or Spanish, sailed through the Torres Strait, between Australia and New Guinea, in August of 1606.

1616: On the 25 October 1616, captain Dirk Hartog sailing the Eendracht, left a commemorative plate, the Hartog Plate on the western coast of Australia. This is the oldest-known artefact of European exploration in Australia.

Original of Dirk Hartog's plate in the Rijksmuseum

1618: In July 1618, Willem Janszoon made another sighting of the Australian coast, this time near North West Cape (Exmouth).

1622: The English ship Tryall was wrecked on the Tryal Rocks off the north-west coast of Western Australia. These were the first Englishmen to sight or land on Australia, at Point Cloates on the west coast of Australia. The wreck is Australia's oldest known shipwreck.

A large iron cannon that was recovered by Fremantle Museum expedition, believed to belong to the English ship Tryall.

1623: Jan Carstensz, a Dutch captain navigated the Gulf of Carpentaria aboard the Pera and Arnhem. The Arnhem crossed the Gulf to reach and name Groote Eylandt.

1629: The Dutch East India Company became wrecked on Houtman Abrolhos off Geraldton, on 4 June 1629, and mutiny and massacre occurred, off the coast of Western Australia. At least 110 men, women and children were murdered.

1642: Dutch explorer Abel Tasman explored the west coast, then landed on the east coast of Tasmania.

Portrait of Abel Tasman, his wife and daughter. Attributed to Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp, 1637 (not authenticated).

The stern section of the Batavia hull and replica of gateway, both housed in the Shipwreck Galleries in Fremantle, Western Australia.

1656: On 28 April 1656, the Vergulde Draeck struck a submerged coral reef midway between what are now the coastal towns of Seabird and Ledge Point, Western Australia. Onboard, were 193 crew, eight boxes of silver coins worth 78,600 guilders and trade goods to the value of 106,400 guilders. Seventy-five survivors, including the Master and Understeersman, reached shore. Rescue attempts were unsuccessful.

Beardman Jug found on the wreck of the Vergulde Draeck

1681: John Daniel, an English sea captain, charted part of Western Australia's coast in 1681, in the ship, New London.

1688: William Dampier, an English explorer, pirate, and navigator, explored the west coast of Australia. He was also the first person to circumnavigate the world three times.

William Dampier portrait, holding his book

1696: Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh charted Australia's southwestern coast and landed at Rottnest Island and the site of the present-day city of Perth.

Portrait of Willem de Vlamingh, Johannes en Nicholaas Verkolje (1690 - 1700)

1770: The Endeavour, under the command of English Lieutenant James Cook, arrived off the east coast of Australia in April 1770 and sailed north. In late April, the Endeavour anchored at a place Cook later called Botany Bay and charted the eastern coast. The continent was claimed for the British Crown. Australia is the only continent where no treaties were made between colonists and prior occupants, as tribes were not united and a separate treaty would have been required with each tribal group.

Portrait of James Cook by William Hodges, who accompanied Cook on his second voyage

1779:  After the loss of the British American colonies, Sir Joseph Banks recommends Botany Bay as a British penal colony.

1788: The First Fleet of 11 ships led by Captain Phillip arrived at Botany Bay on 20 January 1788. The Cadigal people of the Botany Bay area saw the Fleet arrive and six days later, the two ships of French, explorer, La Pérouse, the Astrolabe and the Boussole, sailed into the bay. The French ships remained until 10 March and were later wrecked, near Santa Cruz (Solomon Islands). On 26 January 1788, the First Fleet sailed to Port Jackson, as Botany Bay had no water, poor soil and poor anchorages.

Australian native in his bark hut [picture] / [Augustus Earle] [1826?]. A traditional native home, made from wood/bark. NLAUST

Colour lithograph of the First Fleet entering Port Jackson on January 26 1788, drawn in 1888. Creator: E. Le Bihan.

In 1788, two French ships, Astrolabe and Boussole [Bousole], also arrived at Botany Bay, NSW

Admiral Arthur Phillip (11 October 1738 – 31 August 1814) was an English Royal Navy officer and the first Governor of New South Wales

1788: 14 February 1788, Lt. Philip Gidley King sailed with a party of 23, including 15 convicts, in Supply, to found a settlement on Norfolk Island, where native flax was to be harvested.

 1788: 14 February 1788, Lt. Philip Gidley King sailed with a party of 23 including 15 convicts, in Supply to found a settlement on Norfolk Island, where native flax was to be harvested and others grown.
1788: Uninhabited Lord Howe Island was discovered by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball, commander of the First Fleet ship, Supply, in 1788, while en route between Sydney Cove and the penal settlement of Norfolk Island.

Photo of the original buildings that would be built inside the walls of the gaol at Norfolk Island

1788: 2 November 1788, a party of British marines and 10 convicts left to establish a farming settlement at Rose Hill (Later called Parramatta).

Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 26 October 1938

1788: Because the Aboriginal people avoided the settlement, on 31 December 1788, an Aboriginal man named Arabanoo was captured at Manly, by order of Governor Arthur Phillip. This was done to facilitate communication and relations between the Aboriginal People and the Europeans. Arabanoo contracted smallpox and died within eight days, on 18 May 1789.

1788:  William Dawes, an officer of the British Marines, an astronomer, engineer, botanist, surveyor, explorer, abolitionist, and later, colonial administrator, was interested in studying the local Eora people. Patyegarang, a young Aboriginal woman, became friends with Lieutenant Dawes and they taught each other their languages. Dawes was the first person to make a study and comprehensive written record of an Indigenous Australian language.

William Dawes notebooks from the 1790s are a record of the Eora language, of the Aboriginal people around Sydney. SOAS Special Collections

1789: Governor Arthur Phillip had tanks carved into the sandstone banks of a stream to store water during the dry summer of 1789-90. It became known as the Tank Stream.
1790: 3–28 June 1790, 5 of 6 ships of the notorious Second Fleet arrived. Of the 1006 convicts transported aboard the Fleet, one quarter died during the voyage, and around 40 per cent were dead within six months of arrival in Australia.

Distressing situation of the Guardian sloop, Capt. Riou, after striking on a floating Island of ice

1790: 3 June 1790, the Lady Juliana, convict transport ship arrived into Port Jackson with 226 female convicts on board, including, Elizabeth Parry. Elizabeth was the first female convict emancipated. She married first fleet convict and farmer, James Ruse. Together they grew the first successful crop in the colony.
1790: HMS Guardian (1784), Convict ship of 879 tons, heading for Port Jackson, struck an iceberg on 24 December 1789, was destroyed by a hurricane on 12 April 1790.
1791: The first ship of the Third Fleet arrived at Sydney Cove on the 9 July.
1792: December 1792, Aboriginal men, Bennelong and Yemmerrawanne sailed for England with Governor Phillip. They were presented to King George III and visited the Tower of London.

An undated portrait thought to depict Bennelong, signed "W.W." now in the Dixson Galleries of the State Library of New South Wales.

1798: The navigator Matthew Flinders, an officer of the Royal Navy, sailed from Sydney, with  ship's surgeon George Bass. They sailed to Tasmania and proved that it was an island, separated from the mainland of Australia.

Chart of Van Diemen's Land produced by Matthew Flinders

1803: Matthew Flinders completed the first circumnavigation of the continent, which was known as "New Holland" at this time, and charted previously unknown coastline. Flinders used the name "Australia" in his maps and writings.

Watercolour miniature portrait of British navigator Matthew Flinders, dated about 1800

1803: On 12 September 1803, Lieutenant John Bowen, Royal Navy, established the first-ever British settlement at Risdon Cove, Tasmania. The Risdon settlement was moved to Sullivan's Cove (now Hobart). 

Portrait of John Bowen (1780-1827), by unknown artist, ca. 1890

1804: The "battle for Vinegar Hill" or the Castle Hill rebellion occurred near present-day Rouse Hill. It was fought between 233 convicts (mostly Irish rebels), led by Philip Cunningham, and the colonial forces of Australia, on 5 March 1804.

1808: The Rum Rebellion of 1808 was a military coup instigated by the New South Wales Corps in order to depose Governor William Bligh. 

A propaganda cartoon created within hours of William Bligh's arrest, portraying him as a coward. The arrest of Governor Bligh, 1808, artist unknown, watercolour drawing, attached to the left-hand wall in the image is a sheet with text, "O what can the matter be", Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

1810: Major General Lachlan Macquarie, a British military officer, was the fifth Governor of NSW. He served in this role between 1810 and 1821. His wife, Elizabeth, took an interest in the welfare of women, convicts and of the Aboriginal people. Elizabeth's library of books on architecture were used by her husband and architect, Francis Greenway, in the planning of government buildings. Convict labour constructed the Sydney Hospital between 1811 and 1816.

"Old Sydney Hospital, Macquarie Street c1865-85, Mitchell LIbrary, State Library of NSW"

1813: On 11 May 1813, Gregory Blaxland, William Charles Wentworth and William Lawson set out to cross the Blue Mountains. By 31 May 1813, they succeeded in crossing the mountains and became the first European settlers see the vast plains on the other side.

1814: William Cox was appointed by Governor Macquarie to construct a road across the Blue Mountains to Bathurst. Cox's team of thirty convicts and eight guards, was assisted by two Aboriginal men, Colebee, a Darug man and Joe, from the Mulgoa Clan. On 18 July 1814, the road-building began at Emu Plains. Four months later, the road had reached 47 miles to Mount York. After six months, the road to Bathurst was finished.

William Cox's road near Mt York. The plaque on the left reads, "These pick marks were made to allow Governor Macquaries vehicle to pass over the Blue Mountains in 1815".

1817: In March 1817, John Oxley led an expedition to explore and survey the course of the Lachlan River.

1817: Australia's first bank, the Bank of New South Wales, opened on Tuesday 8 April 1817, at 10 am. The bank opened in rented rooms in the house of ex-convict Mary Reiby in Macquarie Place.

Bank of New South Wales first premiss in Sydney 1822,  Critic (Adelaide, SA : 1897-1924), Wednesday 29 April 1908

1817: On 12 December 1817, Governor Lachlan Macquarie made the recommendation to the British Admiralty, that the name "Australia" be adopted, instead of New Holland. Permission was granted 1824.

1818: In 1818, John Oxley led an expedition along the Macquarie River to Wellington Valley. The expedition took five and a half months and covered more than 1850 miles.

John Oxley (1784 – 25 May 1828)

1824: On 12th September 1824, Moreton Bay Settlement was established at Redcliffe, Brisbane. However, the site moved in May 1825, after Captain Miller selected land by the Brisbane River, now known as Wickham Terrace.

The Old Windmill in Spring Hill is Brisbane's oldest building. As well as being the longest surviving convict building, it’s also the oldest windmill in Australia. Windmill Tower, Wickham Terrace, Brisbane looking west towards the William Jolly Bridge, December 1933

1824: Fort Dundas was a brief British settlement on Melville Island between 1824 and 1828, the first of four British settlement attempts in northern Australia. The three later attempts were at Fort Wellington, Port Essington and Escape Cliffs.

One of the old gun mountings, Fort Dundas, Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), Friday 25 April 1919

1824: The Governor of NSW, Sir Thomas Brisbane commissioned Hamilton Hume and former Royal Navy Captain William Hovell, to lead an expedition in 1924, to find new grazing land, and to find an answer to where NSW’s western rivers flowed. They accomplished an overland journey from Sydney to Port Phillip.

This is the tree on which explorer Hovell carved his name: "Hovell Nov/17 24". Portrait of Hume on the left and Hovell on the right, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 29 November 1924

1825: The New South Wales western border was extended to 129° E. Van Diemen's Land was proclaimed. The name was changed from Van Diemen's Land to Tasmania in 1856.

Van Diemen's land, London : Published by A. & S. Arrowsmith, No. 10 Soho Square, Jan. 4. 1825

1826: On 26 December 1826, Major Edmund Lockyer arrived on the Brig Amity to establish the first settlement in Western Australia, called King George Sound. Later renamed Albany.

1827: On January 21st 1827, Major Edmund Lockyer formally took possession of the western third of the continent for Britain.

Edmund Lockyer in uniform of Captain of the Sydney Volunteer Rifle Corps

1827: John Busby supervised convicts in Sydney, building a 3.4 kilometre bore (tunnel) from Lachlan Swamps to the city racecourse (now Hyde Park). Water was piped to a valve at the corner of Park and Elizabeth Streets where water carts were filled.

1828: The Catholic Sisters of Charity arrived in 1838 and began implementing pastoral care in a women's prison, visiting hospitals and schools and establishing employment for convict women.

1829-30: Charles Sturt traced the Murrumbidgee River to its junction with the Murray River and on to the mouth of the Murray at Lake Alexandrina.

1829: Captain Charles Fremantle, on 2 May 1829, took possession of the western side of Australia for the British crown. On 12 August Perth was founded.

West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Tuesday 24 July 1934

1830: Intense frontier conflict in Tasmania occurred. There were six times as many white men in the colony as women, which resulted in violence. Aboriginal attacks soared from 20 in 1824 to 259 in 1830. 223 colonists were killed and 226 wounded. This led to The Black Line, a human chain of about 2,000 armed men, 700 settlers and 800 convicts and former convicts, going through the Settled Districts, from north to south, over five weeks, to remove Aboriginal people. More info

Untitled, Wurati (Woureddy), by Thomas Bock, an English-Australian artist who was sentenced to transportation in 1823

1831: On 7 March, administration of King George Sound passes to Swan River Colony, and convicts returned to New South Wales. In the following year, the Swan River Colony had its name changed to Western Australia.
1833: The penal settlement of Port Arthur was founded in Van Diemen's Land. Operated from 1833 until 1853.

The Port Arthur Settlement. Tasmania. 1860.

1834: The Tolpuddle Martyrs were six agricultural labourers from the village of Tolpuddle in Dorset, England, who were convicted in 1834 of swearing a secret oath as members of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. They were transported to Australia. However, they were pardoned in 1836, after mass protests and were returned to England. The Tolpuddle Martyrs became a popular cause for the early union movement.

1835: On 30 August, John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner established a settlement at Port Phillip, now the city of Melbourne.

1835:  Escaped convict, William Buckley, lived with the Wautharong people near Melbourne for thirty-two years, before being found in 1835.

Buckley's transportation and escape as depicted by 19th century Aboriginal  (Wahgunyah)  artist Tommy McRae (c.1835–1901)

1835: Australia's first political party was created by William Wentworth, called the Australian Patriotic Association, to demand democracy for New South Wales.

Wentworth, William Charles (1790–1872), Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 19 January 1938

1836: Charles Darwin arrived in Australia in January 1836, staying until March 1836, on the return portion of his voyage around the world, in HMS Beagle. He wrote: "At last we anchored within Sydney Cove; we found the little basin, containing many large ships & surrounded by Warehouses. In the evening I walked through the town & returned full of admiration at the whole scene."

Darwin in 1842 with his eldest son, William Erasmus Darwin

1836; The first settlers arrived on Kangaroo Island in July 1836. Most of the settlers were moved from Kangaroo Island to Holdfast Bay, with Governor Hindmarsh arriving on 28 December 1836, to proclaim the province of South Australia. Nine ships left Britain bound for the newly created province of South Australia in 1836.

1838: On 23 April 1838, the barque Kinnear arrived at Sydney carrying six German wine-growing families. Johann Justus, Friedrich Seckold, Johann Stein, Caspar Flick, Georg Gerhard and Johann Wenz, were the first German vinedressers in Australia. In November 1838, Pastor Kavel brought a large group of German Lutheran migrants to South Australia.

1839: Paul Edmund Strzelecki became the first European to ascend and name Australia's highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko.

Paul Edmund Strzelecki, unidentified photographer, silver gelatin negative copied from original daguerreotype, State Library of New South Wales, Government Printing Office

1839:  The Port of Darwin was sighted by John Lort Stokes in 1839 and was named in honour of Charles Darwin in 1839.

1840s Caroline Chisholm established a migrant women's shelter and worked for women's welfare in the colonies in the 1840s.

Portrait of Caroline Chisholm, engraved by J. B. Hunt after a daguerreotype by Antoine Claudet.

1840: In 1840, convict transportation to NSW ended. Some 150,000 convicts had been sent to the colonies.

1841: New Zealand was proclaimed as a separate colony, no longer part of New South Wales.

1842: Copper was discovered at Kapunda in South Australia. Australia's First Mining Town.

Kapunda, SA, c1860. Looking towards the Flour Mill, from Dr. Blood's. Dr Blood was the first general practitioner in Kapunda and later Mayor of Kapunda. Township of Kapunda in the 1860s. It was established after copper was found in 1842 by Francis Dutton and Charles Bagot. Mining began in 1844 and continued until 1879. SLSA

1843: Australia's first parliamentary elections were held for the New South Wales Legislative Council. 

1844: The first reticulation pipes connected about 70 houses directly to a Bore for 10 shillings (one dollar) a year. People could also buy water at public fountains around Sydney.

1845: A British barque called Cataraqui (also called Cataraque) sank off the south-west coast of King Island in Bass Strait on 4 August 1845. The sinking was Australia's worst-ever maritime civil disaster incident, claiming the lives of 400 people.

Examiner (Sydney, NSW : 1845), Saturday 27 September 1845

1845: Copper found at Burra South Australia in 1845. The Burra Burra Copper Mine was established in 1848.

1849: Western Australia formally becomes a penal colony in 1849. Between 1850 and 1868, 9,721 convicts were transported to Western Australia.

1850: The Australian Constitutions Act 1850 allowed the separation of Victoria and the Moreton Bay settlement from New South Wales (NSW) and granted all colonies, including New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, South Australia and Western Australia, the right to self-government.

1850: University of Sydney was founded 1 October 1850.

New South Wales Government Gazette (Sydney, NSW : 1832 - 1900), Friday 11 October 1850 

1851: Victoria separated from New South Wales, 1 July 1851.

1851 The first gold rush in Australia began in May 1851, after prospector Edward Hargraves claimed to have discovered payable gold near Orange, at a place that he called Ophir.  In the 1850s, gold discoveries sparked gold rushes in Victoria, at Beechworth, Castlemaine, Daylesford, Ballarat and Bendigo. 

Historical - Scenes - Historical photographs of the gold rush in Australia in 1851 [Bendigo, men on camels, c1851, National Archives of Australia

1851: The Forest Creek Monster Meeting, which took place at at Chewton near Castlemaine, December 1851, was an organised protest at Forest Creek in Victoria, Australia, against the increase in miner's licence fee.

1852: Captain Francis Cadell and four men he recruited from the Bendigo goldfields rowed a canvas boat, the Forerunner, down the Murray River from near Swan Hill to Wellington (about 1300 km), to determine the navigability for paddle-steamers.

1853: The paddle steamers, Lady Augusta captained by Francis Cadell, reached Swan Hill, while Mary Ann, captained by William Randell, made it as far as Moama (near Echuca).

1, Lady Augusta captained by Francis Cadell 2, Mary Ann captained by William Randell

1853: Australia's first telegraph line was erected between Melbourne and Williamstown in 1853 and 1854. Cobb & Co first established in Australia.

1853: The Anti-Gold Licence Association was formed in Bendigo, on 6 June 1853. In June and July, thousands of miners gathered to show their solidarity, by wearing red ribbons around their hats. In the same year, the Bendigo Goldfields Petition was signed by over 5,000 diggers.

1854: The Eureka Rebellion occurred in 1854, when gold miners in Ballarat, revolted against the colonial authority of the United Kingdom.

Burning of Bentley's Hotel, the Eureka Rebellion, sketched by Charles Doudiet

1855: The transportation of convicts to Norfolk Island stopped.

1855: In 1855, South Australia granted the right to vote to all male British subjects (a term which extended to Indigenous males) 21 years or over. However, eligibility to vote for the upper House continued to have property restrictions. Most of the colonies included indigenous men in the right to vote but they were not encouraged to enrol. Queensland and Western Australia denied indigenous people the vote. This right was extended to Victoria in 1857 and New South Wales, the following year. The other colonies followed until, in 1896, Tasmania became the last colony to grant universal male suffrage.

1855: In early 1855, South Australia's first horse tram began operating between Goolwa and Port Elliot on the Fleurieu Peninsula.

Goolwa and Port Elliot horse tram : Mr Scarfe, Clerk of Court at window of carriage. Eli Hillman with beard and tall hat at left of carriage.1875, State Library of S.A.

1856: Van Diemen's Land name changed to Tasmania.

1856. Sydney and Melbourne linked by electric telegraph. An electrical telegraph uses electric current and magnetism to convert the manual typing of codes that represent words, into electrical impulses.

South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 - 1900), Thursday 14 February 1856

1858:  The first 10 rules of Australian rules football were written down in Melbourne in 1858. Melbourne and Geelong football clubs were established in 1858 and 1859, respectively. They are among the oldest football clubs in the world.

Football match South Melbourne V Geelong, Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 16 May 1908

1859: 6 June 1859, Queensland separated from New South Wales.

1859: The Australian passenger steamship, SS Admella, became shipwrecked on a submerged reef off the coast of South Australia, in the early hours of Saturday 6 August 1859. Survivors held on to the wreckage for over a week and watched on as repeated rescue attempts failed. 89 people died.

1860: On 22 April 1860, according to Stuart's calculations, John McDouall Stuart's exploration party reached the centre of the continent. 

John McDouall Stuart in 1860

1861: The ill-fated expedition of Burke and Wills. Burke and Wills' bodies were found by Alfred Howitt and buried at Cooper Creek in 1861. Only John King, the Irish soldier and sole survivor, crossed the continent, with the expedition and returned alive to Melbourne. King survived with the help of Aboriginal people.

Natives discovering the body of William John Wills, the explorer, at Coopers Creek, June 1861, oil on canvas, 1862, Eugene Montagu Scott, State Library of Victoria

1861; Norwegians in Australia established the Kiandra skiing club around 1861.

1861: Propertied women in the colony of South Australia were granted the vote in local elections (but not parliamentary elections) in 1861.

1862: John McDouall Stuart led the first successful expedition to traverse the Australian mainland from south to north and return, through the centre of the continent. Following Stuart’s successful journey, South Australia gained control of the Northern Territory and established a settlement at Darwin. 

1864:  The Great Fire of Brisbane swept through the central parts of Brisbane on 1 December 1864, resulting in 50-100 structures being destroyed and 4 people injured. 

Great fire in Queen Street, Brisbane, 1864. Fire broke out on Queen Street between George Street and Albert Street on the east side. SLQLD

1866: Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart, a religious order of women, was founded in South Australia in 1866, by Sister Mary MacKillop.

1867: James Nash discovered gold at Gympie, QLD, on October 16, 1867 and started the gold rush that saved Queensland from financial crisis.

1868: The last convict ship, the Hougoumont, left Britain in 1867 and arrived in Western Australia on 10 January 1868. About 164,000 convicts were transported to the Australian colonies between 1788 and 1868, onboard 806 ships.

1868: The first Australian cricket team, which toured England in 1868, was principally made up of Indigenous players.

Photo of the Aboriginal cricket team that toured England c. 1868. Wearing the cap, centre back, is Tom Wills, coach. At the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

1869: The Aborigines Protection Act (Vic) of 1869, and the an Aborigines Protection Board, could order the removal of any child from their family to a reformatory or industrial school in Victoria.

Cootamundra Training Home for Girls - School Dated: No date

1870: By 1870, 37 per cent of Australia's population lived in the cities. In this year, work begins on the Australian Overland Telegraph Line linking Port Augusta to Darwin.

Planting the first telegraph pole, near Palmerston (Darwin) in September 1870.

1871: By November 1871, a submarine cable had been laid between Java and Port Darwin.

1872; The Australian Overland Telegraph was a 3,200 km (2,000 mi) telegraph line that connected Darwin with Port Augusta in South Australia. The Australian telegraph network was linked directly to Europe by October of 1872.

1873: On 19 July 1873, the surveyor William Gosse sighted the landmark and named it Ayers Rock. The local Anangu, the Pitjantjatjara people, call the landmark Uluṟu (both names are used). 

Petroglyphs on Uluru (Ayers Rock), Wmpearl

1874: Marcus Clarke's, For the Term of his Natural Life, is published in book form.

1875: On 24 February, the steamship SS Gothenburg strikes Old Reef off Bowen, North Queensland, and sank with the loss of approximately 102 lives.

1875: The Adelaide Steamship Company Ltd, was established in Adelaide in 1875, and entered the Queensland coastal trade in 1893 with a weekly service to Brisbane.

Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 2