Australia Events

1642 Tasmania
Major Landforms • Tasman sea • Bass Strait • Dove Lake Demographics • No religion 13,602 • Christian 23,141 Type of Government • Westminster System Government Leaders •...
1643 Dec 25 Christmas Island Discovered
British and Dutch navigators first included the island on their charts in the early seventeenth century, and Captain William Mynors of the British East India Company vessel, the Royal Mar...
1845 Aug 4 Sinking of the Cataraqui
The vessel was commanded by C. Finlay and carried a crew of 44. By early August the Cataraqui was approaching Bass Strait and on the night of the 3rd the vessel was hove to west of King I...
1854 Jan 21 Sinking of the RMS Tayleur
This elegant sailing ship was the largest merchant vessel of her day but she was wrecked on her maiden voyage with the loss of 372 lives. Built at Warrington for owners Charles Moore &...
1859 Aug 6 Wreck of the SS Admella
The wreck of the SS Admella in the early hours of August 6th 1859 was only the beginning of a horrific week for survivors who remained on board, in sight of land, while authorities strugg...
1863 Feb 7 Sinking of HMS Orpheus
Orpheus left Sydney, Australia, on 31 January 1863. Her approach to Manukau Harbour on 7 February ran near Whatipu beach, through a series of dangerous sand bars. The weather was clear an...
1875 Feb 24 Wreck of the SS Gothenburg
She left Port Darwin for Melbourne on the 14th with 88 passengers and a crew of 38, reaching Somerset via Albany Pass, on the 19th. The passengers went ashore and bought a lot of pearlshe...
1908 Apr 20 Sunshine Rail Disaster
The most terrible accident that the state has yet encountered occurred at Sunshine Station (formally known as Braybrook), on Monday night, when the Bendigo express dashed into the rear of...
1910 Mar 18 Houdini Achieves First Powered Flight Over Australia
In 1909, Houdini became fascinated with aviation. That same year, he purchased a French Voisin biplane for $5000 and hired a full-time mechanic, Antonio Brassac. Houdini painted his name ...
1911 Mar 23 Sinking of the SS Yongala
On the morning of 23 March, Yongala steamed into Mackay to drop off and receive passengers and discharge 50 tons of cargo, leaving 617 tons in the lower hold - 'properly stowed'. By 1.40 ...
1914 Sep 11 Battle of Bita Paka
The Battle of Bita Paka was fought at Bita Paka (also spelled Bitapaka), south of Kabakaul, on the island of New Britain, on 11 September 1914 and was as part of the occupation of German ...
1926 Sep 13 Murulla Rail Accident
On 13 September at Murulla, near Murrurundi, twenty-seven people were killed and thirty-seven injured in what the Bulletin described as 'the most complete and disastrous railway smash in ...
1931 Mar 21 Australian National Airways Southern Cloud Crashes into Snowy Moutains, Killing 8
On 21 March 1931, the Southern Cloud departed at 8:10 AM from Sydney for Melbourne. Onboard were six passengers and two crewmembers, including pilot Travis "Shorty" Shortridge. Weather co...
1938 Oct 25 Kyeema Crash
The 1938 Kyeema crash occurred on the western face of Mount Corhanwarrabul, just south of Mount Dandenong, Victoria, Australia. On 25 October 1938, eighteen people were killed when the Ky...
1942 Jan 14 Battle of Gemas
The Battle of Gemas—part of the wider Battle of Muar—during the invasion of Malaya in the Pacific Campaign of the Second World War. The action occurred on 14 January 1942 at the Gemencheh...
1942 Jan 14 Battle of Muar Begins
The Battle of Muar was the last major battle of the Malayan campaign. It took place from 14–22 January 1942 around Gemensah Bridge and on the Muar River. After the British defeat at Slim ...
1942 Jan 23
to 1942 Feb 4
 Battle of Rabaul (1942)
The Battle of Rabaul (Operation R), on the island of New Britain, in the Australian Territory of New Guinea, in January and February 1942, represented a strategically significant defeat o...
1942 Jan 23 Parit Sulong Massacre
On January 23, 1942, the Parit Sulong Massacre was committed against Allied soldiers by members of the Imperial Guards Division of the Imperial Japanese Army. A few days earlier, the Alli...
1942 Jan 30
to 1942 Feb 3
 Battle of Ambon
From 6 January onwards, Ambon was attacked by Japanese aircraft. Allied aircraft made some sorties against the approaching Japanese fleet, with little success. On 13 January, the two B...
1942 Feb 8
to 1942 Feb 9
 Battle of Sarimbun Beach
The Battle of Sarimbun Beach was the first stage of the Japanese assault on Singapore in February 1942, during World War II. Sarimbun, in the west of Singapore Island, was the area in whi...
1942 Feb 9
to 1942 Feb 10
 Battle of Kranji
The Battle of Kranji was the second stage of the Japanese plan for the invasion of Singapore during the Second World War. On 9 February 1942 the Japanese Army assaulted the north-western ...
1942 Feb 19 Japanese Forces Invade Portuguese Timor
During the night of 19–20 February, 1,500 troops from the Imperial Japanese Army's 228th Regimental Group, 38th Division, XVI Army, under the command of Colonel Sadashichi Doi, began land...
1942 Feb 28
to 1942 Mar 1
 Battle of Sunda Strait
The Battle of Sunda Strait was a naval battle which occurred during World War II. On the night of February 28 – March 1, 1942, the United States cruiser USS Houston and the Australian cru...
1942 Mar 31 Imperial Japanese Navy Begins Sustained Attacks on Allied Forces in the Indian Ocean
Following the destruction of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command forces in the battles around Java in February and March, the Japanese sortied into the Indian Ocean to destroy B...
1943 Feb 10 Remaining Australian Forces Evacuated from Portuguese Timor Leaving Japanese to Occupy the Island
By the end of 1942, the chances of the Allies re-taking Timor were remote, as there were now 12,000 Japanese troops on the island and the commandos were coming into increasing contact wit...
1943 May 14 Sinking of AHS Centaur
The Centaur was sunk by a Japanese submarine off the Queensland coast in 1943. With only 64 of the 332 people on board surviving, it was the highest casualty list of any merchant ship ...
1945 Jun 10 Australian Forces Begin 'Operation Oboe Six' to Retake Brunei and Labuan from Japan in Hostilities that Continued Until End of War
Operation Oboe Six was the codename for the campaign by Australian forces to retake Brunei and Labuan island from Japanese forces between 10 June 1945 and the end of World War II. Oper...
1952 Oct 3
8:00AM
 United Kindgom tests its first atomic bomb to become the world's third nuclear power, code named Operation Hurricane
Operation Hurricane was the test of the first British atomic device on 3 October 1952. A plutonium implosion device was detonated in the lagoon between the Montebello Islands, Western Aus...
1958 Oct 26 The Southern Cloud's Crash Site is Discovered
The wreckage was not discovered until October 1958 and the fate of the aircraft, its crew and passengers ascertained. The loss of the "Southern Cloud" was regarded as one of Australia's ...
1966 Jan 8
to 1966 Jan 14
 Operation Crimp
Operation Crimp—also known as the Battle of the Ho Bo Woods—was a joint US-Australian military operation during the Vietnam War in the Ho Bo Woods, 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Cu Chi i...
1966 Aug 18 Battle of Long Tan
The Battle of Long Tần was fought between the Australian Army and Viet Cong forces in a rubber plantation near the village of Long Tần, about twenty seven kilometres north east of Vung Ta...
1966 Oct 25 U.S. Navy Commences Operation Sea Dragon
Operation Sea Dragon occurred during the Vietnam War and was a series of naval operations beginning in 1966 to interdict sea lines of communications and supply going south from North Viet...
1968 Jan 24 Operation Coburg Begins
Operation Coburg was an Australian military action during the Vietnam War. The operation took place between 24 January − 1 March 1968 and saw heavy fighting between the 1st Australian Tas...
1970 Oct 15 West Gate Bridge Collapse
What Gerit Hardenberg could not hear was the eerie pinging noise that came from the flakes of rust peeling off weathered steel or the jarring screech of metal moving slowly across metal. ...
1971 Jun 6
to 1971 Jun 7
 Battle of Long Khanh
The Battle of Long Khanh was fought during the Vietnam War on 6–7 June 1971 between the elements of 1st Australian Task Force and the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army during Operation ...
1973 Sydney Opera House Completed
"There is no doubt that the Sydney Opera House is his masterpiece. It is one of the great iconic buildings of the 20th century, an image of great beauty that has become known throughout th..." —Pritzker Prize
1974 Dec 21 Cyclone Tracy
By world standards, Tracy was a small but intense tropical cyclone at landfall, the radius of gale force winds being only about 50 km. The central pressure of 950 hPa was close to the ave...
1975 Jan 5 Tasman Bridge Disaster
The Tasman Bridge disaster occurred on the evening of 5 January 1975, in Hobart, the capital city of Australia's island state of Tasmania, when a bulk ore carrier travelling up the Derwen...
1977 Jan 18 Granville Rail Disaster
Granville, near Sydney, Australia, 18 January, 1977 a crowded commuter train was derailed and struck the supporting pillars of an over-bridge. The bridge collapsed onto the train killing ...
1986 Aug 26 Williams Vs. The Queen Decided
Williams v The Queen was a decision handed down in the High Court of Australia on 26 August 1986. The applicant was indicted before the Supreme Court of Tasmania on twenty-nine counts - f...
2000 Sep 15
to 2000 Oct 1
 Games of the XXVII Olympiad Held in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event whic...
2001 Oct 19 The SIEV X Sinks
On 18 October 2001, a small, unnamed 19.5m by 4m Indonesian fishing boat departed Bandar Lampung, Indonesia, with 421 passengers onboard. On the 19th, the boat sank during a storm in Indo...
2004 Sep 9 2004 Australia Embassy Bombing
The Indonesian government blamed terrorists linked to al-Qaeda for a suicide car bombing early Thursday outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. At least nine people were killed and 173...
2009 Jan 25 Early 2009 Southeastern Australia Heat Wave
The early 2009 southeastern Australia heat wave was a heat wave that commenced in late January and led to record-breaking prolonged high temperatures in the region. The heat wave is consi...
2009 Feb 7
to 2009 Mar 14
 Black Saturday Bushfires
The majority of the fires ignited and spread on a day of some of the worst bushfire-weather conditions ever recorded. Temperatures in the mid to high 40s (°C, approx. 110–120°F) and wind ...
2009 Feb 15 "White Horse" Is Released In Australia
"White Horse" is the title of a song written by Liz Rose and co-written and recorded by American country singer Taylor Swift. It is the second official single released from her album Fear...
2009 Sep 23 Australia Experiences Worst Dust Storm in Seventy Years
The huge outback dust storm that swept across eastern Australia on Sept. 23 smothering Sydney in red dirt was a stark reminder that after 221 years of white settlement Australians still o...
2010 Dec 15 Christmas Island Boat Disaster
The death toll from the Christmas Island shipwreck could rise as high as 50, Prime Minister Julia Gillard confirmed today. Ms Gillard told a Canberra press conference that the Australi...