Scientists have calculated the age of our planet to be approximately 4.5 billion years.
Between 3.6 billion and 2.8 billion Years Ago
The rocks of the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia are some of the oldest on Earth, forming between 3.6 billion and 2.8 billion years ago.
Gondwana was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago).
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| Gondwana 420 million years ago (late Silurian). View centred on the South Pole. |
Rocks near Marble Bar in the Pilbara region of Australia contain some of the first evidence of life, primitive cyanobacterial mats known as stromatolites.
The earliest land plants preserved in Australia occur in deposits from the Upper Silurian and the Lower Devonian in marine sediments in Victoria named the Baragwanathia Assemblage.
Most of the modern Australian fauna had its origin in the Cretaceous era. Conifer forests and smaller plants such as ferns, gingkos, cycads, clubmosses and horsetails covered Australia.
About 220 million Years Ago
The oldest evidence of dinosaurs in Australia comes from Ipswich, about 40 kilometres west of Brisbane, at the Rhondda colliery, where tracks show early sauropodomorphs lived in Australia.
180 Million Years ago
Gondwana was made up of several landmasses including Australia.
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| Ipswich, QLD, the first and only evidence of basal sauropodomorph dinosaurs from Australia) |
During the Jurassic Period, the western half of Gondwana (Africa and South America) separated from the eastern half (Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica). Australia and Antarctica drifted south.
110 Million Years Ago
Fossils found at Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, suggest that 110 million years ago Australia supported a number of different monotremes (for eg echidnas, platypus).
Australia was warm and humid with rainforest vegetation but began to become drier. The early relatives of possums, koalas, kangaroos, snakes, bats, crocodiles, lizards, frogs, millipedes, beetles and many kinds of birds, lived here. Also marsupial lions and flesh-eating kangaroos. Some megafauna still survive, e.g. emus
As Australia drifted into the drier latitudes, climates changed. This drying shaped Australian biodiversity. For example, Banksias, require the heat of a fire for their fruits to open and allow seed dispersal.
Footprints at Roccamonfina in Italy, date back 350,000 years.
Many megafauna fossils have been found in pitfall caves, such as Naracoorte Caves in South Australia, where animals fell in through roof holes and were unable to escape. For example, giant wombats (Diprotodon optatum. Weight: 1.5 to 2.5 tonnes. Length: 3 m) and marsupial lions (Thylacoleo carnifex) Weight: About 110 k Length: 1.5 m from nose to tail.
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| The Australian Museum, Australian Megafauna |
Between 850,000 and 950,000 Years Ago
The earliest evidence of human footprints outside of Africa, on the Norfolk Coast, on the beach at Happisburgh, in the East of England. (possibly 10 different human occupations of Britain, by 4 different human species)
The earliest evidence of human footprints outside of Africa, on the Norfolk Coast, on the beach at Happisburgh, in the East of England. (possibly 10 different human occupations of Britain, by 4 different human species)
300,000 Years Ago
Archaic Homo sapiens appeared from 300,000 years ago. Modern Homo sapiens appeared from about 160,000 years ago.
100,000 Years Ago
Some archaic Homo sapiens and Homo heidelbergensis lived alongside early modern Homo sapiens before they disappeared from the fossil record by about 100,000 years ago.
72,000 Years Ago
About 19,000 years ago temperatures and sea levels began to rise.
17,300 Years Ago
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| Homo heidelbergensis - forensic facial reconstruction/approximation - cropped. Cicero Moraes |
Modern humans left Africa approximately 72,000 years ago, eventually spreading across Asia and Europe and to Australia, occupying a range of different environments.
(a human fossil from the Misliya Cave in Israel at 177,000–194,000 years old, suggests earlier dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa)
Around 50,000 years ago (or earlier), Aboriginal people reached “Sahul” – a supercontinent of a connected New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania.
An important study found that the first people to arrive in Australia probably travelled through Indonesia's northern islands, into New Guinea and then Australia. Journal of Human Evolution. (Aboriginal Australians and Papuans are more closely related to each other than to any other group of people worldwide)
50,000 Years Ago
The oldest known sites of human occupation in Australia are in Arnhem Land.
Analysis of maternal genetic lineages (mitochondrial DNA) shows that Aboriginal populations moved into Australia around 50,000 years ago.
Megafauna were once widespread across Australia but became extinct about 50,000 years ago – about the same time as the first humans arrived. Other scientists claim climate change caused the extinctions.
46,000 years ago the rainforests were replaced by grasslands, woodlands and deserts. Eucalypts (gum trees) adapted to the dry climate and became the dominant species.
43,000 Years Ago
During the last Ice Age, sea levels were almost 120m lower than today.
Mungo Man believed to be an Aboriginal Australian is the oldest known Australian, dated at about forty-two thousand years.
A reindeer bone fragment, with marks from a flint or stone tool, discovered in Cork, Ireland, establishes human activity dated to 33,000 years ago.
A land bridge formed to Australia about 43,000 years ago as Ice Age sea levels declined.
Megafauna of Tasmania becomes extinct about 41,000.
By 31,000 years ago, most Aboriginal clans were genetically isolated from each other and practised their artistic, musical and spiritual traditions.
The Last Ice Age Peaked Around 20,000 years ago.
The Last Ice Age Peaked Around 20,000 years ago.
Australia's oldest known rock art, a 17,300-year-old painting of a kangaroo, is found in Western Australia's Kimberley region.
10,000 Years Ago
New Guinea was connected by land to Australia until about 10,000 years ago, and Aboriginal people could walk down Cape York into mainland Australia.
Land bridges between mainland Australia and Tasmania are flooded. This results in Tasmanian Aboriginal people being isolated for the next 12,000 to 13,000 years. There was also a loss of complexity in tools.
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| 17,300-year-old painting of a kangaroo, in Western Australia's Kimberley region |
4,000 Years Ago
A genetic study finds that a wave of migration from India occurred about 4,000 years ago, contributing up to 11 per cent of Aboriginal DNA. The ancestor of the dingo also arrived at this time, and stone tools called microliths began appearing.
Australia remained unknown to the rest of the world.
2,500 Years Ago
Torres Strait Islanders arrived from what is now Papua New Guinea around 2,500 years ago and settled in the islands of the Torres Strait and the Cape York Peninsula.
1606
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| The 1999 replica of Duyfken under sail in c. 2006, Rupert Gerritsen |
1616
In 1616, Dirk Hartog sailed off course travelling from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia, and landed on an island off Shark Bay, Western Australia.
1627
The south coast of Australia was accidentally discovered by François Thijssen, a Dutch-French explorer, in 1627.
1629
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| Dutch trading ship 'The Batavia' is shipwrecked off Australia's western coast. oldest structures built by Europeans in Australia, built in 1629 by survivors of the Batavia shipwreck and massacre. |
1642
1756
1770
French explorer, Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne, in 1772, and his expedition, had the first known interaction with Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Stopping at New Zealand, du Fresne and some of his crew were killed and eaten by Maoris.
James Cook's first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) sailed to Tahiti on HMS Endeavour to record observations of the Transit of Venus. In June 1769, Cook opens secret instructions from the Admiralty that he is to sail south in search of Terra Australis Incognita (unknown southern. land). In the spring of 1770, Cook lands in Botany Bay and encounters Aboriginal people. Cook explores and charts the east coast of Australia.
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| Artwork depicting the first contact that was made with the Gweagal Aboriginal people and Captain James Cook and his crew on the shores of the Kurnell Peninsula, New South Wales. Andrew Garran |
1772
Various proposals for the colonisation of Australia were made before 1788, including Sweden's King Gustav III. However, The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) meant that the British could no longer transport convicts to the New World and they looked around for another location.
In 1779, Sir Joseph Banks, who had accompanied James Cook on his 1770 voyage, recommended Botany Bay as a site for a penal settlement. (Cook had been murdered that year by natives of Hawaii)
James Matra, an American-born midshipman, on the voyage to Botany Bay in 1770, pushed the idea of Australia being suitable for plantations of sugar, cotton and tobacco and later added the proposal to include convicts. (remembered by the Sydney suburb of Matraville)
1788
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| Lithograph of the First Fleet entering Port Jackson, 26 January 1788, by Edmund Le Bihan |
In William Bradley's Journal, "A Voyage to New South Wales, 1786-1792", the Aboriginal people wanted to know if the British were men or women. One crewman dropped his pants. (here)
"They expressed a wish to know whether the people in our boat were men or women and made themselves understood by bringing some of their women down, pointing to themselves, our people and the women alternately. As the men were entirely naked, they were immediately satisfied in this particular by one person in the boat, which served to convince them all were the same."
La Pérouse disappeared at sea in 1788, along with two ships and 225 officers, sailors and scientists.
On 29 January 1788, Aboriginal people and the British danced together "These people mixed with ours and all hands danced together." (here)
Initially, Botany Bay was the first settlement, but was found to be unsuitable. The ships of the French La Pérouse expedition, wishing to emulate the great voyage of discovery of Captain James Cook, arrived off Botany Bay just as the First Fleet were leaving. La Pérouse recorded the meeting in his Journal that he later entrusted to the British to send back to France.
On 26 January 1788, a settlement was founded in Sydney Cove.
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| The Founding of Australia by Captain Arthur Phillip RN Sydney Cove January 26th 1788, a 1939 oil painting by Algernon Talmage |
This was the meeting of the most culturally, technologically and economically different people on Earth and tensions soon arose.
Former convict James Ruse produced the first successful wheat harvest in NSW In 1789.
1790
In 1796, D’Arcy Wentworth became Assistant Surgeon of the Colony, Principal Surgeon, Superintendent of Police, and one of the founding members of the Bank of New South Wales.
Lieutenant Dawes and a 15-year-old Aboriginal woman, Patyegarang, meet, and Dawes recorded the first list of Aboriginal words.
1791 – Third Fleet of convicts arrives.
In 1792, Governor Philip returned to England, accompanied by Bennelong, the first Aboriginal Australian to sail to Europe.
William Redfern was transported to New South Wales as a convict for his role in the mutiny on the Nore. Redfern was the first person to receive an Australian medical qualification and is regarded as the "father of Australian medicine".
1791
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| An undated portrait thought to depict Bennelong, signed "W.W." now in the Dixson Galleries of the State Library of New South Wales |
1793 – January: the first free settlers arrived in NSW. (Thomas Rose, his wife and children) See here
In 1798–99, George Bass and Matthew Flinders circumnavigated Tasmania in a sloop, proving it to be an island.
The first frontier skirmishes began in 1795 on the Hawkesbury River.
One in three convicts transported to Australia after 1798 were Irish. Convicts were usually sentenced to 7 or 14 years penal servitude, or "for the term of their natural lives".
1800s
European settlements at Fort Dundas on Melville Island in 1824.
James Stirling surveys the Swan River in 1827 and recommends the area be developed as a British settlement and naval station due to concerns about French intentions on the west coast of Australia. The first detailed map of the Swan River was drawn by the French in 1801.
Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania): Clashes between Aboriginal people and settlers between 1825 and 1830 led to Governor Arthur's military operation known as the "Black Line."
In 1836, Charles Darwin visited Australia. He stayed at Emu Plains in 1836 on his journey to the Blue Mountains.
The Church Act of 1836 established legal equality for Anglicans, Catholics and Presbyterians and was later extended to Methodists.
The oldest theatre in Australia, the Theatre Royal, Hobart, opened in 1837.
The Myall Creek massacre of Aboriginal Australians. The subsequent trial, and hanging of some of the offenders in 1838.
German settlement in Australia increased in 1838, many acquiring land in the Adelaide Hills.
The Athenaeum of Melbourne, an art and cultural hub was founded in 1839.
The Melbourne newspaper, The Herald, is founded in 1840.
The Queen's Theatre, Adelaide, opened with a Shakespearean play in 1841.
Copper was discovered at Kapunda in South Australia in 1842.
Western Australia became a penal colony in 1849.
1802: The French explorers Nicolas Baudin and Francois Peron proposed invading Australia by way of the Hawkesbury River in 1802. Baudin encountered explorer Matthew Flinders on April 8, 1802, at what was named Encounter Bay, South Australia.
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| Géographe and Naturaliste, The Baudin expedition of 1800 to 1803 was a French expedition to map the coast of New Holland (now Australia) |
HMS Investigator, under the command of Matthew Flinders was the first ship to circumnavigate Australia.
The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser was the first newspaper printed in Australia, running from 5 March 1803 until 20 October 1842.
The first settlement at Van Diemen's land (Tasmania) was by the British, was at Risdon Cove on the eastern bank of the Derwent estuary in 1803, partly to block French land claims.
1813: Matthew Flinders used the name "Australia".
William Cox, along with 30 convicts, was commissioned to build a road across the Blue Mountains, that started on 18 July 1814 at Emu Ford (Emu Plains, NSW).
In 1815, a road across the Blue Mountains was completed under Governor Lachlan Macquarie.
British settlement was mostly confined around Sydney (Parramatta, Windsor, Richmond) and a small area of Van Diemen's land (Tasmania). However, settler population increases put pressure on the Aboriginal populations ability to hunt, gather and fish.
Violent conflict between British colonists and Aboriginal Tasmanians from the mid-1820s to 1832.
1803
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| SYDNEY AS IT WAS WHEN THE GAZETTE APPEARED IN 1803. Reproduced from Peron, iu the Historical Records. The view is from the east side of Sydney Cove. Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912) |
The first major convict uprising on 5 March 1804 at Rouse Hill.
Governor Macquarie served as the fifth Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821. He established the Bank of New South Wales (BNSW), the first bank in Australia in 1817. Macquarie also commissioned the construction of roads, wharves, churches, and public buildings.
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| British Library digitised image from page 437 of "An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales ... To which are added, some particulars of New Zealand; compiled ... from the MSS. of Lieutenant-Governor King ... Illustrated by engravings" 1804 |
1808: William Bligh was appointed governor in 1805 and is known for the Mutiny on the Bounty that occurred against his command. Bligh was deposed by the New South Wales Corps, in the so-called "Rum Rebellion".
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| Lachlan Macquarie attributed to John Opie (1761-1807) |
1813: Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth crossed the Blue Mountains.
On 10 December 1814, a "school for the education of the native children" was established at Parramatta, NSW. More Info.
1817: John Oxley charts the Lachlan River.
The first book written by an Australian was by William Wentworth in 1819: A Statistical, Historical, and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and Its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land, With a Particular Enumeration of the Advantages Which These Colonies Offer for Emigration and Their Superiority in Many Respects Over Those Possessed by the United States
1820
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| The name Rose Hill was first applied to the area now known as Parramatta by Governor Phillip in November 1788 Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938) |
According to historian Geoffrey Blainey, clashes between Aboriginal people and the British in Australia during the colonial period: "In a thousand isolated places there were occasional shootings and spearings. Even worse, smallpox, measles, influenza and other new diseases swept from one Aboriginal camp to another ... The main conqueror of Aborigines was to be disease and its ally, demoralisation".
There are also many recorded positive encounters and respectful friendships between Aboriginal Australians and the British. The skills and abilities of Aboriginal people have also been highly regarded.
The Australian newspaper began publishing in 1824.
The Moreton Bay penal settlement was established on the site of present day Brisbane in 1824.
In September 1824, John Oxley, the surveyor-general of New South Wales, embarked on his second expedition up the Brisbane river. He also charted and explored the Lachlan River, Dubbo, Macquarie River, Liverpool Plains, Hasting’s River and Moreton Bay.
Hamilton Hume and William Hovell led an expedition of discovery, travelling 426km from New South Wales to Port Phillip Bay in Victoria.
A military garrison is sent, in 1826, to King George Sound, later the town of Albany.
1829: Captain Sturt explored and charted the Murrumbidgee-Murray-Darling river system.
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| Charles Sturt, by John Michael Crossland (died 1858), given to the National Portrait Gallery, London in 1946. |
1829: Captain Charles Fremantle took possession of the western side of Australia for the British crown. Perth was founded.
1830s
In 1830, Truganini and her husband, Woorrady, were moved to Flinders Island with most of the last surviving Tasmanian Aboriginal people ("full blooded").
The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper began in 1831.
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| Wonreddy [i.e. Wooreddy] - a chief of Bruny Island and husband of Trucanini - last woman of the race. [Tasmania]. illustration by Benjamin Duterrau |
Australia's oldest surviving independent school, The King's School, Parramatta, was founded in 1831.
From the 1830s, Sir Thomas Mitchell, explorer and Surveyor-General of New South Wales led various expeditions into eastern Australia 1831-1836, and tropical Australia 1845-1846. He recorded many Aboriginal place names.
Six English farm labourers were sentenced in March 1834 to transportation to Australia for organising trade-union activities in Tolpuddle, England. Origins of trade unionsim.
In October 1835, the Proclamation of Governor Bourke, restated that Australia had been terra nullius when settled by the British in 1788.
1834: People travelled from Van Diemen's land and began squatting in the Port Phillip hinterland, Victoria, in 1834.
William Wentworth established the first political party, Australian Patriotic Association in 1835, demanding democratic government for New South Wales.
South Australia was established in 1836 as a privately financed settlement. Convict labour was banned.
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| The two-storey convict built Inn began life in 1827 as the Emu Ferry Inn or Wilson’s Hotel. As there was no bridge across the Nepean River at Penrith, NSW, a ferry operated. Around 1829 the name was changed to Pineapple Inn. However, when Charles Darwin stayed there in 1836 he stayed at the inn at Emu Ferry which could simply mean it was near the ferry. (photo taken in 1914) Blue Mountains Library, Local Studies |
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| The original Theatre Royal, Hobart, TAS, Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Saturday 3 November 1934 |
Count Paul Edmund Strzelecki conducted survey work in the Australian Alps in 1839.
1840s
New Zealand is separated from New South Wales in 1841 after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi February 6th, 1840.
When Britain experienced an economic depression in the 1840s, Australia being very much dependant on Britain, also had a major downturn and a cascade of bankruptcies and bank failures.
In 1842, The Moreton Bay Penal Settlement closed and was opened for free settlement. (Brisbane)
The 1843 Legislative Council election in New South Wales was the first of its kind in Australia.
1845: The ship Cataraqui was wrecked off King Island in Bass Strait, with 406 lives lost.
Copper discovered at Burra in South Australia in 1845.
In January 1848 the Board of National Education established a public education system.
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| Success (prison ship/hulk), was converted into a floating museum displaying relics of the convict era and purporting to represent the horrors of penal transportation. On 31 May 1852, Success arrived at Melbourne and the crew deserted to the gold-fields, this being the height of the Victorian gold rush. |
1850s
Australia's first university, the University of Sydney, was founded in 1850.
In 1859 the colony of Queensland was proclaimed.
Native troopers were recruited from areas remote from where they would serve. This was a tactic going back to Ancient Rome. For example, The Varangian Guard were recruited from Scandinavia and Anglo-Saxons from England, as they lacked local political loyalties and could be counted upon to suppress revolts.
Last convicts to arrive in Australia in 1868 (WA). Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 161,700 convicts were transported to the Australian colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land and Western Australia. (women were about 15 per cent of convicts transported)
The Australian Colonies Government Act 1850 granted representative constitutions to New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
Victoria separated from New South Wales in 1851.
Gold found at Ballarat in 1851 sparked Victoria's gold rush. An estimated 6000 miners were arriving every week from around Australia and the world.
1851: Gold is discovered in New South Wales, in a waterhole near Bathurst, in 1851. Gold rush begins. A great wave of migration and economic boom.
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| Sun (Sydney, NSW : 1910 - 1954) |
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| Hopeful miners carried their possessions in bags on their backs, others pushed wheelbarrows, while the luckier ones had horses to ride, or to pull a cart |
Australia's first telegraph line was erected between Melbourne and Williamstown in 1853 and 1854. 4000 telegrams were sent in the first year (1854).
1853: First paddle steamers on Murray River.
Australia's first public steam railway was the Melbourne to Port Melbourne line opened in 1854.
1856: Secret ballot introduced, and all adult men given the vote.
1854: Battle of the Eureka Stockade, Ballarat. Gold miners rebelled against the British administration of the colony of Victoria, seeking various reforms. Called he birthplace of Australian democracy.
The Bennelong Point Sewerage System became Sydney’s first planned system to dispose of the city’s sewage in 1857.
The heyday of the bushrangers, was the Gold Rush years of the 1850s and 1860s.
From 1858 onwards, the major capitals of Australia were progressively linked by electrical telegraph, culminating in the addition of Perth in 1877.
Australian rules football began in Melbourne about 1858.
1858: Sydney and Melbourne linked by electric telegraph.
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| DESPERATE ENCOUNTER WITH BUSHRANGERS AT M'GLEDE'S FARM, NEAR GUNDAGAI .Illustrated Sydney News and New South Wales Agriculturalist and Grazier (NSW : 1872 - 1881), Saturday 29 November 1879 |
1859
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| Native Police, Rockhampton, QLD, 1864 |
In 1860 the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition occurred.
John McDouall Stuart in 1860, led the first successful exploration from South Australia to the Gulf of Carpentaria and back again.
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| StateLibQld 2 116084 Chinese gold digger starting for work, ca. 1860s - PICRYL - Public Domain Media Search Engine Public Domain Search |
1868
1870s
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| Planting the first telegraph pole, near Palmerston (Darwin) in September 1870. |
The first congress of trade unions was held in 1879.
Ned Kelly, who led the Kelly Gang was captured at Glenrowan in 1880, wearing home-made metal armour. Hanged 11 November 1880.
Trains link Sydney and Melbourne in 1883.
1880s
Trains link Sydney and Melbourne in 1883.
Silver was discovered at Broken Hill in 1883.
The railway network between Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney completed in 1889.
Sir Henry Parkes delivered the Tenterfield Oration calling for the federation of the 6 colonies on 24 October 1889.
1890s
1890: The Australian Federation Conference.
Banjo Paterson published "The Man from Snowy River" in 1890.
A meeting of the National Australasian Convention met and agreed on the name "the Commonwealth of Australia," also drafting a constitution. (the legal framework for how Australia is governed)
Waltzing Matilda was written in the town of Winton, Queensland, by Banjo Paterson, 1895.
Referendums asking people to say "yes" or "no" to the proposed Australian Constitution were held in each of the Australian colonies between 1898 and 1900.
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| Night of the referendum on Federation of Australia, Charters Towers, 1900 Outside the Exchange Hotel in Mosman Street, Charters Towers. SLQLD |
Between 1899 and 1902, more than 10,000 Australian soldiers sailed for South Africa to support British troops n the Boer War.
1901, 1 January: Australia becomes a federation. Edmund Barton is the 1st Prime Minister of Australia; the 7th Earl of Hopetoun becomes Governor-General.
Women’s minimum wage set at 54% of men’s wages, 1912.
1914: Australian soldiers are sent to the First World War and fight under the Australian flag.
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| Aboriginal people from north Queensland - circa 1900, Possibly members of the Kalkadoon tribe, Aussie~mobs |
The constitution was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1900 and given royal assent.
The Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V) opened the first Commonwealth Parliament in Melbourne on 9 May 1901.
The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 limited immigration to Australia and formed the basis of the White Australia policy which sought to exclude all non-Europeans from Australia.
The Australian Flag was flown for the first time on 3 September 1901.
1902: Commonwealth Franchise Act gives women the vote in federal elections.
1903: The High Court of Australia is established.
Alfred Deakin is elected as the 2nd Prime Minister of Australia, 16 December 1903.
On Boxing Day 1906, The Story of the Kelly Gang, an Australian bushranger film, opened at the Athenaeum Theatre. This film also signified the emergence of an Australian identity.
Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968) wrote the poem "My Country", first published in 1908.
1912: Fanny Durack (1889 – 1956) was the first Australian woman to compete in the Olympic Games and won the gold medal in the 100 meters freestyle event in 1912.
In 1908, Yass-Canberra was chosen as the nation's capital as a compromise between rival cities, Sydney (NSW) and Melbourne (Vic).
1911: The Royal Australian Navy is founded and the Northern Territory comes under Commonwealth control. The first national census is conducted.
1912: The Central Flying School at Point Cook founded in 1912 would become the Royal Australian Air Force in 1921.
1912: In May 1912, Walter Burley Griffin's plan for Canberra was announced as the winner of an architecture competition. Marion Mahony Griffin, one of the first licensed female architects in the world, produced watercolor perspectives of Griffins' design for Canberra.
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| Canberra plan submitted to the Canberra design competition by Walter Burley Griffin "View from the summit of Mount Ainslie". |
1913: Canberra is officially named as the Capital of Australia.
1914: On 25 April 1915, 16,000 Australians and New Zealanders, together with British, French and Indian troops, landed on the Gallipoli peninsula.
1915: Billy Hughes became the 7th Prime Minister of Australia.
1916: At Pozières (23 July – 3 September 1916) 23,000 men are casualties in six weeks.
1916; The Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA), the forerunner of todays Returned and Services League (RSL) founded 1916.
1918: Conflict between the unions and the territory administration led to the “Darwin rebellion”.
1920s
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| The original QANTAS office in Longreach, Queensland (c. 1921), SLNSW |
1922: The Smith Family was founded in 1922 by five businessmen in response to the childhood poverty they saw around them.
1927 The tenth parliament is formally opened in Canberra.
1928: Bert Hinkler makes the first successful flight from Britain to Australia, and Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first flight from the United States to Australia. The Shrine of Remembrance is built.
1929: Western Australia celebrates its centenary.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to a worldwide economic depression and the Australian economy collapsed.
Labor returns to government under James Scullin, 1929.
1930s
Cricketer Don Bradman became the first Australian to score 1,000 runs in England before the end of May 1930. Other records: Bradman scored 254 at Lord's in London, and at Leeds, he made 334 in the Third.
New South Wales and Queensland connected by rail when Sydney–Brisbane railway opens in 1930.
1931: Australia's first Antarctic research expedition led by Sir Douglas Mawson charts 4,000 miles of Antarctic coastline and led to a 42% land claim for Australia.
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| DAME MELBA AT THE PERTH THEATRE DAY CHARITY APPEAL.Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 4 October 1922 |
1927 The tenth parliament is formally opened in Canberra.
1928: Bert Hinkler makes the first successful flight from Britain to Australia, and Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first flight from the United States to Australia. The Shrine of Remembrance is built.
1929: Western Australia celebrates its centenary.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to a worldwide economic depression and the Australian economy collapsed.
Labor returns to government under James Scullin, 1929.
1930s
1932; Sydney Harbour Bridge completed in 1932. Construction began on 28 July 1923, employing 1,400 workers and taking over eight years to build.
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| Sydney Harbour Bridge, NSW, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 1 October 1932 |
1933: A secession referendum was held on 8 April 1933 in Western Australia, with the vote to leave the Federation successful. However, the proposal was rejected by the Commonwealth and British governments.
1935: Aviator Charles Kingsford Smith vanished mid-flight in 1935 and remains a mystery.
1936: On 7 September 1936, the last known thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) died from exposure at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart.
1937: The radio series Dad and Dave begins.
1938: The 1938 British Empire Games were held in Sydney.
1939: The Victorian bushfires of 13 January 1939, known as Black Friday, after several years' of drought.
1939: Prime Minister Joseph Lyons dies in office and is replaced by Robert Menzies.
1939: Australia entered World War II on 3 September 1939, following the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Nazi Germany.
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| Signallers from the Australian 2/15th Infantry Battalion at Pyrmont, Sydney, just before embarkation for the Middle East, December 1940, AWM |
1939: The Wirraway (an Aboriginal word meaning "challenge"), a training and general purpose military aircraft manufactured in Australia, made its first flight.
1940; Australian Howard Florey conducted pioneering research with other scientists to develop the anti-bacterial drug penicillin. He shared the Nobel Prize in 1945.
Menzies resigns and John Curtin becomes Prime Minister (1941-45).
The Australian soldiers, the Rats of Tobruk, held the Libyan port of Tobruk against the Afrika Corps (German army) during the Siege of Tobruk in World War II. The siege started on 11 April 1941 and was relieved on 10 December.
Three major battles occurred around El Alamein between July and November 1942, and were the turning point of the war in North Africa. Australians played an important part.
1975: South Australia becomes the first state in Australia to legalise homosexuality between consenting adults in private.
1940s
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| Five women on stage at Largs Reserve with microphone and stand with reserve and hills in the background |
The Royal Australian Navy was involved in operations against Italy in June 1940.
Australians were involved in the Battle of Britain in August and September 1940.
From 1941, the Australian Army was engaged in combat, when the 6th, 7th, and 9th Divisions joined operations in the Mediterranean and North Africa.
The Timeless Land, published 1941, is a work of historical fiction by Eleanor Dark. The Timeless Land is the first novel of The Timeless Land trilogy.
The Australian soldiers, the Rats of Tobruk, held the Libyan port of Tobruk against the Afrika Corps (German army) during the Siege of Tobruk in World War II. The siege started on 11 April 1941 and was relieved on 10 December.
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| North Africa: Libya, Cyrenaica, Tobruk Area. Tobruk. Australians standing by in a hot section of the front, 400 yards from the enemy. he men were identified in the unit history as, front to rear, as: VX35964 Private (Pte) William John Goodgame', VX36671 Pte Gordon James Watkins and SX1412 Pte Charles George Stening'. All three were promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal during their service. Lance Corporals Goodgame and Watkins were killed in action at Buna, Papua, on 24 December 1942. AWM |
February 1942: 15,000 Australians become Prisoners of War of the Japanese, with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese.
Japanese submarines operated in Australian waters from January 1942 until July 1944.
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| EL ALAMEIN Memorial, built by the Imperial War Graves Commission at the battlefieldCourier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1933 - 1954), Thursday 14 October 1954 |
On 19 February 1942, Darwin was attacked by 242 Japanese aircraft. At least 235 people were killed in the raid. Other raids: 896 raids on Darwin, 9 raids on Horn Island, 4 raids on Broome, 3 raids on, Exmouth Gulf, 98 raids on Townsville. The attacks on Australia in early 1942 created the belief that invasion was imminent.
The Japanese objective was to seize Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, overland from the north coast, following the Kokoda Track. The Australian Army halted the advance of Japanese forces and pushed them back across the mountains. (9July and November 1942)
National daylight saving is introduced as a war time measure, 1942.
In 1942, Ken G. Hall became the first Australian to win an Academy Award for his documentary Kokoda Front Line!
2,815 Australian prisoners of war die constructing Japan's Burma-Thailand Railway.
In 1949 the Commonwealth Parliament granted the right to vote in federal elections to Aboriginal people who already had the right to vote in their state, or, who had completed military service.
1950: Women’s minimum wage set at 75% of men’s wages.
Jedda, Australia’s first feature film with Aboriginal lead roles, released 1955.
The "six o'clock swill" ends in 1955.
The Cowra breakout of August 1944, when 1,104 Japanese prisoners of war attempted to escape from a prisoner of war camp near Cowra.
The Sandakan Death Marches were forced marches, by the Japanese in Borneo, from Sandakan to Ranau, which resulted in the deaths of 2,434 Allied prisoners of war.
Australian forces battle Japanese forces from Borneo to Bougainville.
1944: The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is introduced, providing subsidised medicine to all Australians.
1945: the Liberal Party of Australia is established, with Robert Menzies as its first leader.
1945: Australian forces successfully led the Allied liberation of Borneo.
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| Leonard Victor (Len) Waters (20 June 1924 – 24 August 1993) was the first Aboriginal Australian military aviator, and the only one to serve as a fighter pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Waters flew 95 sorties from Noemfoor, and later from the air bases at Morotai and Tarakan, in Borneo. |
Nazi Germany surrenders, May 7, 1945.
Prime Minister Curtin dies and is replaced, briefly by Frank Forde, then by Ben Chifley.
On August 10, 1945, Japan offered to surrender to the Allies.
In 1949, the Commonwealth granted voting rights to Aboriginal ex-servicemen and ex-servicewomen.
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| Historic image of a yet unidentified man dancing in the streets of Sydney, Australia at the close of World War II (August 15, 1945) |
Almost a million Australians, both men and women, served in the Second World War.
Australia becomes a founding member of the United Nations.
The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is held for the first time in 1945.
After World War II, the Australian Government embarked on a large-scale immigration program.
170000 displaced persons arrived in Australia between 1947 and 1952.
Between 1945 and 1965, two million immigrants arrived in Australia.
The Nationality and Citizenship Act is passed,.establishing Australian citizenship, 1949.
1949: the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme officially begins.
1949: Liberal Party Menzies Government.
1950s
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| Section of the main showroom inside F. W. Nissen jewellery store in Brisbane, Queensland, ca. 1950, State Library of Queensland |
Australian troops are sent to the Korean War to assist South Korea (1950-53)
1951: Voters reject a referendum to change the Constitution to allow the Menzies Government to ban the Communist Party.
Australia signs the ANZUS treaty with the United States and New Zealand, 1951.
1952: First atomic test in Australia at the Montebello islands in WA.
1954: Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh arrive in Australia. The first reigning monarch to tour Australia.
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| THE QUEEN and the Duke of Edinburgh saw their first {A}boriginal corroboree at Whyalla Mail (Adelaide, SA : 1912 - 1954), Saturday 20 March 1954 |
1955: The Australian Labor Party split of 1955, over Communist influence in the labour movement.
1955: The Malayan Emergency was a conflict between communist guerrillas and British Commonwealth forces including Australians.
Television was introduced into Australia in September 1956. Barry Humphries introduces Edna on the first evening of television broadcasting in Australia in 1956.
The 16th Summer Olympics is held in Melbourne in 1956.
1957: The Wild One by Johnny O'Keefe is Australia's first rock'n'roll hit.
Slim Dusty released his iconic song “A Pub with No Beer” in 1957.
1959: Construction begins on the Sydney Opera House.
The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962, granted all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the option to enrol and vote in federal elections.
1970s
In 1972 the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission ruled that women and men undertaking similar work that had similar value were eligible for the same rate.
1960s
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| Bailey's Motel at Noosa Heads, Queensland, Australia - 1960s. Aussie Mobs |
The Beatles arrived in Australia in 1964 for their first and only tour of Australia.
1964: 82 sailors die when HMAS Voyager sinks after a collision with HMAS Melbourne.
The editors of Oz, an independently published alternative/underground magazine associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, are charged with obscenity in 1964.
Introduction of the National Service Scheme by the Menzies Government in November 1964. Many of the conscripts were sent on active service to the war in Vietnam.
The requirement that women working in the Commonwealth Public Service must leave that job when they marry was introduced in 1922 and abolished in 1966.
Robert Menzies retires as Australia's longest-serving Prime Minister in 1966.
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| Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, KT, AK, CH, QC, FAA, FRS (/ˈmɛnziːz/, MEN-zeez; 20 December 1894 – 15 May 1978) |
The Beaumont Children Jane (9), Arnna (7), and Grant (4) disappear from Glenelg Beach, SA, in 1966.
On 14 February 1966, Australia changed from the Australian pound to a decimal currency.
1966; Ronald Joseph Ryan was the last person to be legally executed in Australia.
1966: Black Tuesday bushfires devastate large areas of Hobart and south-eastern Tasmania; 62 people were killed.
The 1967 Australian referendum to recognise Aboriginal people in Australia, amending the constitution to allow the government to pass laws relating to Aboriginal people (or, more accurately, including Aboriginal people in the laws passed by the government, rather than passing separate federal laws), and counting them in the population. More info
A major turning point in the history of organised crime with many months of gangland violence in 1967, Sydney. See Sydney Crime Museum
6PR personality Garry Meadows was the first announcer to use talkback radio in early 1967.
1967, Dec: Prime Minister Harold Holt disappears while swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria.
On 10 January 1968, John Gorton became the 19th Prime Minister.
Australia signs the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1968.
Lionel Rose defeated "Fighting" Harada in Tokyo in 1968 to become Australia's first Aboriginal world champion.
1968: Australia's first liver transplant operation is performed in Sydney.
May Gibbs and her contemporary Norman Lindsay, both author-artists, die in 1969.
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| By May Gibbs, Mail (Adelaide, SA : 1912 - 1954), Saturday 3 December 1938 |
The Australian production of rock-musical Hair opened in Sydney on 4 June 1969 at the Metro Theatre, Kings Cross.
1969: John Gorton reelected as Prime Minister.
An increasing number of demonstrations against the Vietnam war took place in 1969 and 1970.
1971: Neville Bonner became Australia's first Aboriginal parliamentarian.
John Gorton resigns as Prime Minister and is succeeded by William McMahon, 1971.
The 1971 South Africa rugby union tour of Australia by the Springboks to Australia is disrupted by anti-apartheid protests. Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen declared a State of Emergency.
1971: Daylight saving is introduced to New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.
In June 1971. the New South Wales Builders Labourers’ Federation imposed the world’s first green ban to protect a bushland area called Kelly’s Bush on Sydney’s Lower North Shore.
Queensland discontinues Daylight Saving, 1972.
1972: Aboriginal Tent Embassy established in front of Parliament House, Canberra.
Britain's prototype of the Anglo-French supersonic airliner landed in Darwin, July 1972.
On 5 December 1972 Gough Whitlam became Australia’s 21st Prime Minister, and the Australian Labor Party (ALP) formed its first government in 23 years.
1972: Australia recognises the People's Republic of China.
The federal voting age is dropped from 21 to 18, in 1973.
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| A 1972 portrait of Gough Whitlam, Prime Minister of Australia, National Archives of Australia |
1973: The Sydney Opera House is formally opened by Elizabeth II.
The White Australian Policy (established 1901) is officially dismantled, 1973.
The Vietnam War ended, after almost 20 years, on April 30, 1975, when the North Vietnamese defeated the South Vietnamese.
The Vietnam War ended, after almost 20 years, on April 30, 1975, when the North Vietnamese defeated the South Vietnamese.
The federal voting age is dropped from 21 to 18, in 1973.
Green bans by the BLF saved The Rocks and Woolloomooloo and other important historic buildings and parkland from demolition by developers. (heroes, Jack Mundy, Morry Breen)
1973: Patrick White becomes the first Australian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Advance Australia Fair first performed 1878, replaced "God Save the Queen" as the official national anthem in 1974. Decision reversed, and then, Advance Australia Fair is reinstated as the national anthem in 1984.
Cyclone Tracy devastated the city of Darwin from 24 to 26 December 1974.
In 1975, the Australian Parliament abolished appeals to the British Privy Council.
On 5th January 1975, ore carrier Lake Illawarra crashed into the Tasman Bridge (Tasmania) claiming 12 lives and severing the Eastern Shore's link with Hobart.
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| Tasman Bridge Disaster, Hobart, TAS, View of the Tasman Bridge from Kalatie Road Montague Bay looking toward the Powder Jetty over Cuthbertson's Boat shed (1975). Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office |
The Whitlam Government drafted the first Commonwealth legislation to grant land rights to Aboriginal peoples, 1975. The Whitlam Government was dismissed before the legislation could pass the Senate.
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| Aboriginal children possibly at a mission school - circa 1970, Aussie~mobs |
A constitutional crisis occurred when Malcolm Fraser delayed supply, threatening a government shutdown until Governor-General John Kerr dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on 11 November 1975. Kerr then appointed Malcolm Fraser, Leader of the Opposition, as caretaker Prime Minister.
Malcolm Fraser wins the election and becomes Prime Minister, Dec. 1975.
The Australian Capital Territory legalises homosexuality between consenting adults in private, 1976.
The Granville rail/train disaster occurred on Tuesday 18 January 1977, at Granville, a western suburb of Sydney. The accident claimed 83 lives and injured 213 others.
First Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 1977.
The 1979 decision of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission granted a 12 month unpaid maternity leave entitlement to all permanent workers.
1979 Kakadu National Park is first declared.
1980s
12th Commonwealth Games held in Brisbane, 1982.
1985: Uluru (Ayres Rock) land rights.
1980s
Baby Azaria Chamberlain disappears from a campsite at Uluru (Ayers Rock), taken by a dingo.
The 1980 election was Malcolm Fraser's third successive victory as coalition Prime Minister.
A referendum is held in Tasmania to vote for whether or not the Franklin Dam should be built in 1981.
Green Politics began in Tasmania with the formation of the United Tasmania Group in March 1972.
Henry Reynolds' book, The Other Side of the Frontier, was published in 1982. Historians Geoffrey Blainey and Keith Windschuttle would later call this the "black armband view" of Australian history. Reynolds' countered: better a black armband than a white blindfold.
On the 12th of October 1982, after almost ten years of construction, the Australian national Gallery was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
1983: The Ash Wednesday bushfires kill 71 people.
Bob Hawke defeats Malcom Fraser, and Labor is back in government, 1983.
26 September 1983, the yacht Australia II made history winning the oldest sporting trophy in the world, the America's Cup.
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| Liberty on starboard watching Australia II cross the finish line to win the 1983 America's Cup, Samfitz17 |
In 1983 the newly elected Labor government moved the Australian dollar onto a floating exchange rate.
Compulsory voting enrolment for Aboriginal people in 1984.
Medicare came into effect on 1 February 1984.
1984: The one dollar coin is issued to replace the one dollar note.
Capital punishment was abolished in all states by 1985.
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| Anita Cobby in 1979, for use on the article Murder of Anita Cobby |
1986 Affirmative Action Act (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) introduced.
Crocodile Dundee is a 1986 action comedy film set in the Australian Outback and in New York City.
In 1989, Rosemary Follett was elected the first Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory. (the first female Head of State in Australia)
1987: Hawke sets up Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
The Hoddle Street massacre was a mass shooting that occurred 9 August 1987 in Hoddle Street, Clifton Hill, a suburb of Melbourne.
Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was Queensland's longest-serving premier, but a corruption inquiry led to his resignation, 1987.
The Queen Street massacre was a mass shooting on 8 December 1987 at Australia Post, Queen Street in Melbourne, Victoria.
The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1988. It marked 200 years since the arrival of the First Fleet of British convict ships at Sydney in 1788.
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| Watercraft on Sydney Harbour welcome the First Fleet Reenactment Voyage to Sydney on Australia Day 1988, National Archives of Australia |
Brisbane hosts World Expo 88.
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| Closing day crowds at Expo 88, Queensland State Archives |
1988: The new Parliament House opens in Canberra.
At 10.27 am on Thursday, 28 December 1989, Newcastle was devastated by an ML 5.6 (Richter magnitude) earthquake, that kills 13 people.
At 10.27 am on Thursday, 28 December 1989, Newcastle was devastated by an ML 5.6 (Richter magnitude) earthquake, that kills 13 people.
The Grafton bus crash killed 21 people and injured 22 on the Pacific Highway near Grafton, NSW, 20 October 1989.
1990s
Carmen Lawrence was the first woman in Australia to hold the office of State Premier in 1990.
1991: Heart surgeon Victor Chang is gunned down.
The Strathfield massacre occurred at a shopping mall in Strathfield, Sydney, on 17 August 1991. Eight dead and six wounded.
August 21, 1991, explosions at Coode Island cause one of the worst chemical fires in Melbourne's history.
1991: Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation Act 1991 is passed. The starting point for the reconciliation process.
Dec, 1991: Paul Keating replaces Bob Hawke to become the 24th Prime Minister of Australia.
Queensland holds a referendum on daylight saving, which is defeated with a 54.5% "no' vote.
Keating defeats John Hewson. The Australian Greens stand candidates for the first time, 1993.
1996: John Howard becomes Prime Minister, defeating Paul Keating.
1992: Mabo decision by the High Court overturns terra nullius and rules that native title exists over unalienated Crown land, national parks and reserves.
Paul Keating's Redfern Park speech, 1992.
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| Tourist arriving off ferries from day trips to the Islands, Cairns Harbour, QLD, 1993, Queensland State Archives |
1993: Native Title Act.
1996: Wik decision that native title and pastoral leases can co-exist.
The Port Arthur rampage ends in the deaths of 35 men, women and children at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996.
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| Port Arthur Bay, Port Arthur was the location of most of the shootings. EurovisionNim |
The Howard Government's firearm legislation reforms are enacted following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.
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| Gold Coast, QLD, 1996 |
1997: Bringing Them Home, the report of the inquiry into the Stolen Generations, is released.
Tasmania legalises homosexuality, 1997.
The disastrousThredbo landslide, July 30, 1997, claimed 18 lives.
On the morning of 22 November, 1997, Michael Hutchence was found dead in his hotel room in Sydney.
Patrick Stevedores sacked its Maritime Union of Australia workforce on 7 April 1998, and attempted to replace its workforce with non-union employees.
The Australian Stock Exchange ('ASX') demutualised on 13 October, 1998. A day later, it listed on its own market.
The Motion of Reconciliation was introduced to the Australian Parliament and passed on 26 August 1999. Drafted by Prime Minister John Howard in consultation with Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway.
The Australian republic referendum held on 6 November 1999 was defeated, partly due to division among republicans on the method proposed for selection of the president.
1999: Australian forces deployed to East Timor to lead the INTERFET mission following violence surrounding the East Timorese vote for independence.
Western Australia adopts a uniform age of consent of 16, 2001.
2000s
2000: Howard Government introduces a Goods and Services Tax (GST).
Sydney 2000 Olympic Games took place September 15–October 1, 2000.
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| The 2000 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony at Stadium Australia, on 15 September 2000. TSGT Rick Sforza |
2001: Australia celebrates centenary of federation.
Death of Donald Bradman, aged 92, in 2001 (25 February).
Australia committed military personnel to Afghanistan in October 2001 after the 11 September attacks on the World Trade Centre.
John Howard is re-elected as Prime Minister, Nov. 2001.
Bali bombings occurred on 12 October 2002 in the tourist district of Kuta on the Indonesian island of Bali. The attack killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. A further 209 people were injured.
Australia joined a US-led coalition in its 2003 Iraq invasion.
Northern Territory introduces uniform age of consent set at 16. New South Wales becomes the last State to have a uniform age of consent of 16 for everyone. 2003
The 2003 Rugby World Cup was won by England and hosted by Australia.
Legendary country music entertainer Slim Dusty dies, aged 76, September 19, 2003.
2004: Federal Government introduces legislation to abolish ATSIC. (after its chairperson is investigated for sexual assaults and ATSIC was investigated for corruption, and the embezzlement of funds)
The 9 September 2004 bomb explosion outside the Australian Embassy, Jakarta, Indonesia.
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| Slim Dusty, at the Golden Guitar awards in Tamworth BackSpace Delete |
Mark Latham's 2004 election loss to John Howard.
The Cronulla riots erupted on 11 December, 2005, after reports that a lifeguard had been assaulted.
In 2006, Perth became the first Australian city to operate a seawater desalination plant.
Stephen Robert Irwin, known as "The Crocodile Hunter", was fatally injured by a stingray barb while filming, September 4, 2006.
Peter Brock was killed on September 8, 2006, when the car he was driving crashed into a tree.
Australian troops returned to East Timor in 2006 to help stabilise the country.
2007 - 21st June: Howard Government announces its intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.
Australia was the only major economy to avoid a recession during the 2008 global financial crisis.
Nov. 2007: Labor party leader Kevin Rudd swept to victory, and John Howard failed in his attempt to win a record fifth term as prime minister.
Sydney hosts Catholic World Youth Day, 2008.
On 5 September 2008, Quentin Bryce was sworn in as Australia's twenty-fifth Governor-General, and the first woman to take up the office.
2008 - 13th February: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says "Sorry" to the Stolen Generations.
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| Bryce after an interview at Regatta Point at the Australia Day ceremony in Canberra on 26 January 2010, Bidgee |
2010: Mary MacKillop canonised as Australia's first Saint of the Roman Catholic Church.
Tropical Cyclone Yasi was the largest storm in Queensland's history, causing major flooding, 3 Feb 2011.
A carbon pricing scheme was introduced by the Gillard Labor government in 2011.
March 2013, Julia Gillard, the Prime Minster, delivered a formal apology to people affected by past forced adoptions.
Kevin Rudd defeats Julia Gillard in a leadership spill, 57 votes to 45. Gillard resigns from parliament. Rudd is again sworn in as prime minister, June 2013.
Tony Abbott became the Prime Minister of Australia after the victory of the Liberal/National coalition at the Federal Election on 7 September, 2013.
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| Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, 2014 |
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| HM Bark Endeavour Replica. Sydney. At the Australian National Maritime Museum. The Australian-built replica of James Cook's HMB Endeavour is one of the world's most accurate maritime replica vessels 2015, Bernard Spragg. NZ |
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| The Street Art Canvas on Hosier Lane - Melbourne, Australia, Bernard Spragg. NZ |
2019 Australian federal election: Scott Morrison remains as Prime Minister of Australia.
2019; The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) – became the first Australian region to legalise the possession, use and cultivation of small amounts of cannabis.
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| 2000s, era of tattoos, botox and injected lips |