Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 3

1920: The national, Country Party of Australia (The Nationals) is formed.

1920:  The Communist Party of Australia is founded in Sydney.

1920: The first successful flight from Melbourne to Perth is completed (3 Dec).
1921: Edith Cowan was a social reformer who worked for the rights and welfare of women and children. In 1921, Edith Cowan, at 60 years of age, became the first woman elected to an Australian Parliament.

Edith Cowan's portrait appears on the back of Australia's fifty dollar note.

1921: The first group of Barnardo's Boys arrived in Sydney. The boys were trained as farm labourers, the girls as domestic servants. Many were poor children taken from the streets of London, UK, who were abused in Australia.
1921:  Walter Burley Griffin is removed as director of construction for Canberra.
1922: Queensland abolishes capital punishment, the first state in Australia to do so.

1922:  Henry Lawson dies aged 55.

Photographic portrait of Australian bush poet Henry Lawson

1922:  Billy Hughes reelected as Prime Minister.

1923: Stanley Bruce became 8th Prime Minister of Australia.

1923: Telephone link between Sydney and Brisbane officially opened.
1925: Australian federal election: Stanley Bruce reelected as Prime Minister.

1925: Millicent Preston-Stanley becomes the first woman member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly.

Millicent Preston-Stanley, the first woman member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly. Truth (Sydney, NSW : 1894 - 1954), Sunday 24 October 1954

1925: Australia's oldest commercial radio station, 2UE, begins broadcasting in Sydney (16 Dec).

1926: Helen Wayth wins the first Miss Australia Quest. The first Miss Australia contest was held in 1908 as a one-off event.

1927:  The Australasian Council of Trade Unions is formed at the All-Australian Trade Union Congress in Melbourne.
 1927: Parliament House in Canberra is officially opened by the Duke of York.

Prime Minister Mr Stanley and Mrs Ethel Bruce with another man on the steps of Parliament House, Canberra, ca. 1927

1927: David Unaipon was the first Australian Aboriginal writer to have a book published in Australia. The A.F.A. funded publication of Hungarrda (1927), followed by Kinnie Ger - the Native Cat in 1928 and his main work, Native Legends, in 1929.

David Unaipon, 1925, State Library of New South Wales

1928: The first solo flight between England and Australia made by Bundaberg born aviator, Bert Hinkler, in 1928. Sir Charles Edward Kingsford Smith also, made the first transpacific flight from the United States to Australia.

Bert Hinkler and his Avro Avian in 1926

1929: Labor returns to office under James Scullin. The Great Depression impacts Australia.

Men in a dole queue during the Great Depression at No. 7 Wharf, Circular Quay, Sydney, 11 June 1931, NLAUST

1929: Don Bradman, dubbed "the boy from Bowral" and "The Don", on January 2, 1929, in his second Test, scored the first of his 29 Test hundreds. 

1930: Phar Lap, the racehorse legend, wins the 1930 Melbourne Cup.

Phar Lap wins the Melbourne Cup, c1930

1930:  Don Bradman scores a record 452 not out in one cricket innings.
1931: Isaac Isaacs becomes the first Australian-born Governor-General.

1931: The two ends of the Sydney Harbour Bridge are joined in the middle.

Construction of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, 1925-27. Courtesy State Library of New South Wales 

1931: Sir Douglas Mawson, as the leader of the British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (1929–1931), claimed 42 per cent of the Antarctic continent, for Australia.

1931: Dame Nellie Melba, the world-renowned Australian soprano, dies.

Dame Nellie Melba photographed outside the Gresham Hotel, Brisbane, ca. 1909. Nellie Melba was born Helen Porter Mitchell on 19 May 1861 at Richmond, Melbourne.

1931: Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, the father of modern social anthropology described Aboriginals' social organisation, religious belief and practice and published, Social Organization of Australian Tribes in 1931.
1932: On 19 March 1932, the Sydney Harbour Bridge opened to the public.

1932:  Joseph Lyons becomes Prime Minister.

1933: Western Australia votes at a referendum to secede from the Commonwealth, but the Commonwealth and British governments ignore the vote.

1935: Sir Charles Kingsford Smith's aircraft, Lady Southern Cross, mysteriously disappears off the coast of Burma.

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his Lockheed Altair low-wing monoplane, "Lady Southern Cross", Table Talk (Melbourne, Vic. : 1885 - 1939), Thursday 30 August 1934

1936: On 7 September 1936, the last known thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) died in Hobart Zoo.

The last known thylacine photographed at Beaumaris Zoo in 1933. A scrotal sac is not visible in this or any other of the photos or film taken, leading to the supposition that "Benjamin" was a female. However, photographic analysis in 2011 suggested that "Benjamin" was male.

1937: The 11 Minute daily Radio Soap Opera called, "Dad & Dave from Snake Gully" begins in 1937. It is the story of a country family in the fictional town of Snake Gulley. Listen here

1938: Sydney hosts the Empire Games, the forerunner to the Commonwealth Games.

People at Empire Games, 12 February 1938, Sydney, NSW, SLNSW

1939: Victoria is devastated by the Black Friday bushfires (13 January).

1939: Prime Minister Joseph Lyons dies in office and is replaced by Robert Menzies and the first Menzies Government. Lyons is the only person in Australian history to have been prime minister, premier of a state, and leader of the opposition in both the Federal Parliament and a state parliament.

Joseph Aloysius Lyons was the 10th Prime Minister of Australia from 1932 -1939. National Library of Australia

1939: In September, Australia enters the Second World War following the German Invasion of Poland. The 2nd Australian Imperial Force is raised.

Declaration of War Broadcast, September 1939, Robert Menzies

The Diggers embarking at an Australian port for service in the Middle East. Evening Advocate (Innisfail, Qld. : 1941 - 1954), Friday 15 September 1944

1939: The Cummeragunja walk-off in 1939 was a protest by Aboriginal Australians at the Cummeragunja Station, an Aboriginal reserve in southern New South Wales.

Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Tuesday 25 July 1939

1939: The first flight of the CAC Wirraway (an Aboriginal word meaning "challenge"). It was an aircraft manufactured in Australia by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) between 1939 and 1946.
1940: Australian pathologist, Sir Howard Florey, along with Ernst Boris Chain, isolated and purified penicillin.
1940: From mid-1940, ships of the Royal Australian Navy, at the request of the Admiralty, began to deploy to the Mediterranean Sea to take part in the Battle of the Mediterranean against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
1941: 3 Divisions of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force join operations in the Mediterranean. After successes against Italy, defeats are suffered against the Germans in Greece, Crete, and North Africa.
1941: The Rats of Tobruk were soldiers of the Australian-led Allied garrison, who held the Libyan port of Tobruk against the Afrika Corps, during the Siege of Tobruk in World War II. The propagandist for Germany, William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw", began describing the besieged men as living like rats in underground dug-outs and caves. The Australians reclaimed the name as a badge of pride.

A group of ten Australian soldiers posing with a 'Rats of Tobruk' banner outside a building bearing the sign 'magezzeno' c1942. SLSA

1941; Menzies resigns and John Curtin becomes Prime Minister.
1941: The Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit was formed in 1941, composed mostly of Aboriginal people from the Northern Territory. The unit patrolled the coast of Arnhem Land during 1942–43 searching for signs of Japanese landings and was trained, to fight as guerrillas using traditional weapons in the event of an invasion.

Squadron Leader training the NTSRU. The Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit Was formed in 1941, Royal Australian Airforce Air Power Development Centre

1942: Fall of Singapore occurred when all British Empire forces withdrew from the Malay peninsula onto Singapore Island, by 31 January 1942. Then, on the morning of 8 February 1942, the Japanese commenced a massive artillery bombardment on Singapore, resulting in a decisive Japanese victory, with the capture of Singapore by the Japanese and the largest British surrender in history. 15,000 Australians become Prisoners of War of the Japanese.
1942: Between February 1942 and November 1943, Australia was attacked at least 111 times by aircraft from the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force and Imperial Japanese Army Air Force. These attacks came in various forms; from large-scale raids by medium bombers, to torpedo attacks on ships, and to strafing runs by fighters. Six German surface raiders also, operated in Australian waters at different times between 1940 and 1943. These ships sank a small number of merchant ships and the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney. The German submarine U-862 also carried out attacks in Australian waters in late 1944 and early 1945.

An Australian gun camera photograph of two Japanese Mitsubishi G4M2 "Betty" medium bombers during a raid on Darwin in June 1943.

1942: The attacks on Australia, especially by the Japanese, caused many to believe that invasion by the Axis powers was imminent. The term, "Battle for Australia", was used in wartime propaganda campaigns, but whether there was a campaign aimed against Australia is debated by historians.
1942-3: Sparrow Force, the code name of a garrison which included Australian Special Forces, was formed to defend the island of Timor from invasion by the Empire of Japan.
1942: The Battle of the Coral Sea, fought from 4 to 8 May 1942, was a major naval battle between the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and naval and air forces of the United States and Australia.

HMAS Australia (center) and TG17.3 under air attack on 7 May 1942, Joint Australian-United States naval Task Group 17.3 under air torpedo attack by Imperial Japanese Navy land-based bombers during the Battle of the Coral Sea on 7 May 1942. A Japanese Mitsubishi G4M Type 1 bomber flies past the cruiser HMAS Australia (D84).

1942: On 29 July 1942, the Japanese captured the village of Kokoda, Papua New Guinea, and its airfield. During the Battle of Kokoda Track, the Japanese came closer to Australia, than in any other campaign, as Australian forces battled, in the jungle, to hold back the advancing Japanese. Papua New Guinea's "Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels" acted as bearers for the Australian and other Allied troops.
1942: The Battle of Milne Bay (25 August – 7 September), fought on the remote, extreme eastern tip of Papua, was the Allies' first defeat of Japanese forces on land during the Second World War.1942: Three major battles occurred around El Alamein, Egypt (150 miles west of Cairo), between July and November 1942. The Australian 9th Division, led by Lieutenant General Leslie Morshead, played a crucial role in two of these battles, which were the turning point of the war in North Africa.

British and Australian graves at El Alamein, Egypt - WW2, Australian section right hand corner. Kaye

1942: Daylight saving was introduced during World War I in Australia, to save power. It was reintroduced during WWII for the same reason.
1942: The Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, enabled the total legislative independence of the various self-governing Dominions of the British Empire, including Australia.
1943: Kokoda Front Line!, an Australian newsreel, was the first Australian film to win an Oscar, at 15th Academy Awards.

Three "fit" workers at Shimo Sonkurai No 1 Camp, standing outside the camp hospital. Identified, left to right, believed to be: NX4417 Bruce Pearce, NX47506 Oscar Jackson, and NX47513 Reuben Niles Pearce, all of the 2/30th Battalion. The prisoner at right is unable to fasten his shorts because his stomach is swollen with beri-beri. c 1943, AWM

1943: In 1943, the Japanese Empire decided to build a railway, through mosquito-infested jungle, linking Thailand and Burma, using Australian prisoners of war (as well as British, Dutch and conscripted Asian labourers) as slave labour, with only hand tools. They endured immense suffering and hardship and the death of 2,815 Australian POWs.

1944: On 5 August 1944, 1,104 Japanese prisoners of war tried to escape from a prisoner of war camp near Cowra, NSW. It was the largest prison escape of World War II and extremely violent.
1944: The Sandakan Death Marches were forced marches of Allied prisoners of war, held captive by the Empire of Japan, which took place in Borneo, from Sandakan to Ranau. The result was the death of 2,434 allied prisoners of war.

Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954), Tuesday 2 October 194

1944: Australian forces fight Japanese garrisons from Borneo to Bougainville.
1945: Between May and July 1945, Australian-led Allied forces liberated Borneo from Japanese occupation.
1945: On May 7, 1945, Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Reims, France.

Forbes Advocate (NSW : 1911 - 1954), Tuesday 8 May 1945

1945: Ben Chifley became Prime Minister 13 July 1945, following the death of John Curtin in office. Chifley served as the 16th Prime Minister of Australia and was in office from 1945 to 1949.

Ben Chifley, Labour Prime Minister in 1945, National Archives of Australia

1945: The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. 

Hiroshima, Japan, in the aftermath of the bombing, U.S. Navy Public Affairs Resources Website

1945: On August 14th, 1945, the Japanese government accepted defeat. Australia becomes a founding member of the United Nations.

Dancing Man, Sydney, Australia, 15 August 1945

1945: On 31 August 1945 the Liberal Party of Australia was officially launched at Sydney Town Hall by Robert Menzies.

P.O.W Japanese prison camps, Newcastle Sun (NSW : 1918 - 1954), Thursday 27 September 1945

1945: The first Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race was held in December 1945.
1946: The first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, promoted mass immigration with the slogan "populate or perish".
1946:  Australian, Norman Makin, was the first President of the United Nations Security Council in 1946.
1948: Dr H. V. Evatt is elected President of the United Nations General Assembly.
1948:  The first Australian-designed mass-production car was manufactured by Holden in 1948.

Holden crosses at the] opening of the Hexham Bridge, Newcastle, 17 December 1952 / Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales

1948: Australia becomes a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
1948: The Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 made Australians, not just British subjects, but Australian citizens as well.
1948: The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) began in 1948, with free medicines for pensioners and a list of 139 "life-saving and disease preventing" medicines free of charge for others in the community.

Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 1.

Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 2.

Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 4.

Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 2

1876: On 8 May 1876, Truganini, the last full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian dies. However, The Companion to Tasmanian History details three full-blood Tasmanian Aboriginal women, Sal, Suke and Betty, who resided on Kangaroo Island in South Australia in the late 1870s and "all three outlived Truganini". There is also dispute within the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, over what constitutes Aboriginality.

Aboriginal woman named Truganini (Seaweed) wearing a shell necklace. She was a native of Bruni Island, Tasmania. Federation University Australia 

1876: Legislation is enacted in Queensland, in November, creating the first public fire service in Australia.
1877: The first officially recognised Test Match took place between 15 and 19 March 1877, played between England and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).

The English cricket team that toured Australia and New Zealand in 1876-77.

1878: The telephone is used for the first time in Australia in Melbourne.
1878: Advance Australia Fair is first sung publicly at the Highland Society of NSW.
1878: Ned Kelly and his gang, on December 9, lock 22 people in a storehouse on a sheep station near Euroa, Victoria. The next day they rob Euroa's bank.
1879: The first nation-wide meeting of unions in Australia took place in October 1879, at the Mechanics Mechanics' School of Arts, Pitt Street, Sydney.

The Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, Pitt Street. From an album of photographs with the inscription "Colonel Trevor, 14th Regiment, November 10th, , 1869" in the Collection of the State Library of New South Wales.

 1880: The bushranger Ned Kelly was hanged 11 November.

Ned Kelly the day before his execution, National Archives of Australia

1880: Victorian parliamentarians become the first in Australia to be paid for their work.
1881: Adelaide became the first city in Australia to use a water-based sewerage system.
1883: In 1883, the first regular train service between Sydney and Melbourne was established.

"Three men shown with a train engine, engine number 36." [ca. 1885-ca. 1887], SLVIC

1884: Henrietta Dugdale formed the first Australian women's suffrage society in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1884.

Henrietta Dugdale, formed the first Australian women's suffrage society in Melbourne, Victoria in 1884, as a single woman c1845

1885: In 1885 a rich vein of silver was found at Broken Hill, NSW, which turned out to be one of the world's largest known silver-lead-zinc lodes. Broken Hill Proprietary Company (later to become the world's largest mining company, BHP Billiton) is registered as a company in Victoria.

A team of donkeys pulling a wagon. Men and women on board, men standing next to the wagon. B.H.P. Company mine in the background. SLSA

1886: The SS Ly-Ee-Moon sinks off Green Cape, New South Wales, with the loss of 71 persons.

1887: Construction of Goulburn Weir commenced, one of Australia's earliest irrigation schemes.
1887: 81 miners are killed during a coal gas explosion at Bulli. And a cyclone hits a pearling fleet off Eighty Mile Beach, 120 men drown.

1887: Gold was discovered around Southern Cross, WA, in 1887.

1888: The Dawn, was a Journal for Australian Women, which was published monthly in Sydney, between 1888 and 1905. It was first published, 15 May 1888, by Louisa Lawson. 

The front cover of the first issue of the '"Dawn. The magazine was the first feminist journal published in Australia.

1889: Railway network between Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney completed.

1889: On 24 October 1889,  Henry Parkes made a speech at the Tenterfield School of Arts on the need for the Australian colonies to federate into one nation.

Henry Parkes (27 May 1815 – 27 April 1896) by Henry Walter Barnett

1890: Banjo Paterson published, "The Man from Snowy River". "Waltzing Matilda" was written in 1895 by Banjo Paterson.
1890: From 1890 to 1893 a severe economic depression caused many banks to collapse and close.

Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), Monday 1 May 1893

1891: The 1891 Constitutional Convention was held in Sydney in March to consider a draft Constitution for the federation of the British colonies in Australia and New Zealand. The Convention approved a constitutional draft, but the colonial parliaments failed to act to give it effect.

1893: The Corowa Conference was a political meeting held at Corowa, NSW, in 1893, to discuss a proposed federation of the Australian colonies.

The drafting committee at the 1897–98 convention – John Downer, Edmund Barton and Richard O'Connor.

1894: South Australia became the first Australian colony, and the second place in the world, to grant women the right to vote, as well the first Parliament in the world to allow women to stand for office.

1894: Women in South Australia and the Northern Territory became eligible to vote for the Parliament of South Australia following passage of the Women's Suffrage Bill in December 1894. This received  Royal assent in 1895.

1895:The premiers of all colonies, except Queensland and Western Australia, agreed to implement the Corowa proposals, to federate the Australian colonies.

1896: The Federal Convention at Bathurst (NSW) provided a forum for ordinary citizens to discuss the Constitution Bill of 1891.

The People's Federal Convention --The Ladies' Committee, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1907), Saturday 28 November 1896

1896: Passengers Alighting from Ferry Brighton at Manly, was the first film shot and screened in Australia.

1897: Catherine Helen Spence became the first female political candidate for political office in Australia. 

Portrait of Catherine Helen Spence in the 1890s. First female political candidate for political office

1899:  Anderson Dawson formed a Labour minority government in Queensland, the first Labour Party government in the world, which lasted one week while the conservatives regrouped after a split.
1899: Dot and the Kangaroo, a children's book by Ethel Pedley, is published.

1899: An electric tram service begins in Sydney, along George Street from the railway to Circular Quay.

"Railway" (Central Station) tram, Macquarie Bond Store, Circular Quay, c.1898, SLNSW

1898/9: Referendums were held in all colonies (except Western Australia).

1899-1902: The war between the British and the two Dutch South African republics – the Boer War - raged from 11 October 1899, until 31 May 1902. All Australian troops fought under the Union Jack in the Boer War.

1900: 17 September 1900, Queen Victoria issued a Royal Proclamation which declared:
On and after 1 January 1901, the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia shall be united in a Federal Commonwealth under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia.

1901: Australia became a nation on 1 January 1901, when the 6 British colonies, united to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Prime Minister – Edmund Barton (from 1 January). The 7th Earl of Hopetoun becomes Governor-General.
1901: Queen Victoria died at the age of 81 on 22 January 1901.

Queen Victoria, lived from 24 May 1819 to 22 January 1901, She was Queen of the United Kingdom from 20 June 1837 until her death.

1901. Outbreak of bubonic plague. Health authorities and government swung into action and there were few deaths. Cleaning of infected neighbourhoods began and rat extermination.

Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Tuesday 28 May 1901

1901: 0n 9 May, the first Commonwealth Parliament met at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. The states transferred their naval and military forces to the Commonwealth of Australia under the control of the Department of Defence.

1901: The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 – commonly known as the "White Australia Policy", enshrined in law.

1901: The Flag of Australia, with a six-pointed Commonwealth Star, was chosen in 1901.

Australian flag seen flying in Toowoomba, Queensland, Lachlan Fearnley

1902: The Commonwealth Franchise Act 1902 set uniform rules across Australia, and gave all women, over the age of 21, the right to vote and stand for election for federal Parliament. The Act disqualified some Indigenous Australians, Asian people, African people and Pacific Islanders (except New Zealand Maori) from voting.

1902:  27 February, Lieutenants Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock were executed by firing squad for murdering 12 Boer prisoners of war.

1903: The High Court of Australia was established in 1901 by Section 71 of the Constitution. However, the appointment of the first Bench had to await the passage of the Judiciary Act in 1903.

The first bench of the High Court: Barton, Griffith and O'Connor seated, with court officials in the background. Photo taken at the first sitting of the court on 6 October 1903.

1903: The Defence Act gives the federal government full control over the Australian Army.

1903: Alfred Deakin is elected as the 2nd Prime Minister of Australia in the 1903 federal election.

Photographic portrait of Alfred Deakin, Arthur J. Melhuish - National Library of Australia

1904: Chris Watson, whose name at birth was Johan Cristian Tanck, formed the first federal Labor (minority) government. After Deakin resigned, Watson briefly became the 3rd Prime Minister of Australia. On the 18th of August, George Reid became the 4th Prime Minister of Australia.

1905: Deakin returns as prime minister on 5 July.

1906: In 1906, Australia assumed responsibility for the external territory of Papua — the southern half of what is now Papua New Guinea, due to anxieties about German intentions to annexe the eastern part of New Guinea (the western part was Dutch controlled).

Papuans on the Lorentz River, photographed during the third South New Guinea expedition in 1912–13, Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of World Cultures

1906:  The incumbent Protectionist Party minority government led by Alfred Deakin was reelected.

1908: House of Representatives selects Yass-Canberra over Dalgety as the site for the National Capital.

1908: "My Country", a poem about Australia, written by Dorothea Mackellar at the age of 19, is published.

Part of "My Country" by Dorothea Mackellar, Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Thursday 29 June 1950

1908: Andrew Fisher became 5th Prime Minister of Australia.

1909: Martha Rendell becomes the last woman to be hanged in Western Australia.

1909: The University of Queensland is established.
1910: John Robertson Duigan built and flew the first Australian-made aircraft.

John Duigan & his Biplane in Flight, Mia Mia, Victoria, circa 1910, Source: Museums Victoria

1910: Edward VII dies, his son George V becomes King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions.
1910: The Royal Australian Navy is established. 

1911: 1 January – The Northern Territory is politically separated from South Australia and transferred to Commonwealth control. And Compulsory military training comes into effect in Australia.

1911: Australia's first national population census. The Commonwealth Attorney-General stated that persons of half or less Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent should be included in the population figures. As a result, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people encountered were asked to complete the Census form.

1911: Australian Capital Territory proclaimed.

1912: Fanny Durack was the first Australian woman to compete in the Olympic Games. She won the gold medal in the 100 meters freestyle event in 1912, with fellow teammate Mina Wylie winning the silver medal.

Australian swimmers Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie, with British swimmer Jennie Fletcher, on a diving board poised to dive. National Museum of Australia

1912: The RAAF traces its history back to the Imperial Conference held in London in 1911, where it was decided aviation should be developed within the armed forces of the British Empire. Australia implemented this decision and the "Australian Aviation Corps" was established.

1912: Walter Burley Griffin won the design competition after submitting designs drawn by his wife, Marion Mahony Griffin, for the design of the city of Canberra.

1913: Canberra is officially named as the Capital of Australia.

1913: Joseph Cook is elected as the 6th Prime Minister of Australia.

1914-1918:  416,809 Australians enlisted during the WWI and 334,000 served overseas, from a population of fewer than five million. 

1916: Australia was involved in 29 battles on the Western Front, with more casualties in the first six weeks of our involvement than the entire eight-month Gallipoli campaign. Every minute of the Battle of Fromelles, which lasted for 10 hours, nine Australian soldiers were either killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

Informal group portrait of soldiers returning to Australia on HMAT Medic. Identified are 3718 Private (Pte) Frank Leslie Corpe (at the back, circled) and 6020 Pte Douglas Grant, an indigenous soldier (second row, seated fourth from the left). Both men served with the 13th Battalion and along with other members of the battalion were taken prisoner of war (POW) on 11 April 1917 at Riencourt, Germany. This group probably includes fellow 13th Battalion POWs who returned on the Medic with Privates Corpe and Grant. This image is from the collection of Frank Corpe. First World War, 1914-1918 AWM

1914: Andrew Fisher becomes Prime Minister. Fisher was the leader of the Australian Labor Party from 1907 to 1915.

Queensland nurses leaving on the SS Omrah for World War I, circa 1914

1915: On 25 April, Australian soldiers land at ANZAC Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. An estimated 27,000 French and 115,000 British and dominion troops (Great Britain and Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Newfoundland) were killed or wounded. More than half these casualties (73,485) were British and Irish troops.

Australian sniper using a periscope rifle at Gallipoli, 1915. He is aided by a spotter with a periscope. The men are believed to belong to the Australian 2nd Light Horse Regiment and the location is probably Quinn's Post, created by the United Kingdom Government

1915: Surfing was brought to Australia in 1915 by Hawaiian man, Duke Kahanamoku.

 Duke Kahanamoku, at the 1924 Paris Olympics, in 1904-1984, with American Olympic swimmer, Johnny Weissmuller, Bettman Collection

1915: William Morris Hughes (Billy), served as the 7th Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1915 to 1923. He led the country during World War I.

1916: Hotels are forced to close at 6 p.m., leading to the beginning of the "six o'clock swill". The six o'clock swill was an Australian and New Zealand slang term for the last-minute rush to buy drinks at a hotel bar before it closed, which fostered a culture of binge drinking.

 "six o'clock swill", Smith's Weekly (Sydney, NSW : 1919 - 1950), Saturday 11 February 1950

1916: The Returned and Services League (RSL) was formed in June 1916 by troops returning from WWI with the purpose of preserving the spirit of mateship formed amidst the carnage and horror of battle.

1916: The Australian Labor Party split, followed severe disagreement within the Australian Labor Party over the issue of proposed conscription in Australia.

1917: The Trans-Australian Railway, opened in 1917, through Australia's driest and most isolated terrain, running from Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, crossing the Nullarbor Plain.

1917: Billy Hughes reelected as Prime Minister. (Hughes was born Pimlico, London, but both his parents were Welsh).

William Morris Hughes in 1908, National Library of Australia

1917: The Battle of Beersheba, fought on 31 October 1917, is a significant event in Australian history. It has been called "Australia's first big achievement on the world stage".

1918: Battle of Amiens: Australian troops spearhead 8 August offensive against Hindenburg Line: the "black day of the German Army". On 12 August, Australian commander General Sir John Monash is knighted in the field of battle by King George V. John Monash was born in West Melbourne on 27 June 1865 to German-Polish Jewish parents.

His Majesty King George V, knighting Lieutenant General Sir John Monash, Australian Corps Commander, at the Corps Headquarters in the Chateau, when General Monash was invested as a Knight Commander of the Bath. 12 August 1918, AWM.

1918: 11 November, WWI ends with almost 54,000 Australians (mostly men), dead. 4,000 were taken prisoner, and 155,000 were wounded.

Armistice Day, Martin Place,, Sydney in 1918, Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Saturday 11 November 1933

1918: Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, by may Gibbs, was published in 1918.

 Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, by May Gibbs, First Edition 1918

1918: On 17 December 1918, more than 300 hundred men led by the Australian Workers Union secretary, Harold Nelson, marched on Government House demanding the resignation of John Gilruth, Administrator of the Northern Territory.

1919: Prime Minister Billy Hughes signs the Treaty of Versailles at the Paris Peace Conference on 28 June 1919.

1920: Qantas was founded in Winton, Queensland, on 16 November 1920 by Hudson Fysh, Paul McGinness and Fergus McMaster, as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited.

Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 1.

Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 3.

Timeline: Outline Australian History. Part 4.