Stuff that happened on the 26th of February in Oz history

 1606 - Willem Jansz became the first recorded European to tap dance on the shilly-shally shores of The Fair Isle of Oz at the Pennefather River, where the Banana-Bender (aka QLD) town of Weipa now stands.

Pissing off the locals, Jansz lost ten of his crew, no, not down the back of his couch, they were done a nasty mischief by the pissed off locals, during multiple visits to the shore (cos obvs they couldn't take a hint the first time!). He gave a pithy Tripadvisor review of the joint, finding it swampy, humid (and just sooo savage on his tresses).

Willem mapped 320 kms of the shore before rocking back home to the Netherlands. 

Except, the silly bugger was convinced it was part of New Guinea, and Dutch maps repeated his hubris for yonks.

1804 - Good old souse Bobby Knopwood aka Rev Robert Knopwood did spaketh forth in Tassie's first church service on the current-day site of the Tasmanian Museum.

1811 - James Hutchinson was Hanged at Sydney for stealing from the shop of Thomas Abbott. Hutchinson was originally condemned to death in June 1810 for burglary however he escaped from custody, upon being recaptured his sentence was reduced to hard labour. In February 1811 he was convicted along with James Ratty of stealing from commercial premises and both were hanged together.

1811 - James Ratty was Hanged at Sydney for stealing cloth, muslin etc. from the shop of Thomas Abbott.

1825 - Samuel Fielding was Hanged at Hobart for sheep-stealing.

1825 - James Chamberlain was Hanged at Hobart for sheep-stealing .

1825 - Stephen Lear was Hanged at Hobart for burglary at the Surveyor-General's.

1825 - Henry Fry was Hanged at Hobart for burglary at the Surveyor-General's.

1830 - Oh how simply spiffing, what-oh! 

The first serious game of cricket was held in Hyde Park where the Colonial Civilians (Currency Lads) soundly defeated the 57th regiment (the Die Hards).

Now, back to the hangings...

1830 - John Killeen was Hanged for sheep stealing. 

1830 - Samuel Jones was Hanged at Hobart for sheep stealing.

1830  - Joseph Fogg was Hanged at Hobart for an unnatural crime.

1830 - Thomas Goodwin was Hanged at Hobart for cutting the throat of Ann Hamilton with intent to kill.

1831 - Thomas Bartie was a lucky little chap when he was granted 2560 acres of land at Hinton in the Parish of Butterwick and Seaham. 

The grant was known as Rosebank

1837 - An original voyage of the damned was a ticket on the migrant ship Lady McNaghten, which arrived in Port Jackson today with 54 deaths on board her decks during and a further 13 in quarantine after the not-so-delightful-sea-jaunt.

1838  - The Fitzroy River in Westralia was just lying around waiting for someone to discover it when Commander John Wickham on HMS Beagle doffed his hat and obliged.

1840 - Seeing as Or-stray-lia had so much land to fill up 56 French-Canadian and a couple of Irish rebels from the Lower Canadian Rebellion won a free sea cruise on HMS Buffalo to be interred near current-day Concord, NSW thus blessing the colony with names like Exile Bay, Canada Bay and French Bay.

1848 - A £25 reward was offered by Govt. for apprehension of Indigenous bloke 'Darley' for the rape of a female residing at a station belonging to the Australian Agricultural Company.

1856 - James Galloway convinced a meeting of employers and employees to begin implementing the 8 hour day. A public holiday was declared and floats were prepared to represent the various trades, and was celebrated until the last procession in 1951.

1866 - Governor Darling was recalled.
Ahhh, yes, well I remember the dear, sweet little numbers he wore when out promenading upon the grassed lawns of the Colonial Parliament House, the dashing hand-tooled shoes that matched his hair ribbons so well and the delicious little draw-string bags he wore at his waist....oh.
Yes.
*ahem* He was recalled back to Britain.
Though his ensemble for the voyage was simply darling...

1872 - The brig 'Maria' sank off the coast of Queensland, Australia, with the loss of 21 by drowning and 14 by Indigenous Australians.

1882 - With a 182 metre long platform and a clock tower without a clock, Albury railway station was finally completed (no clock?). It had hit hip pockets for £24,000 (but still no clock?) and in June 1883 the station hosted a massive gala party to celebrate the linking of Melbourne and Sydney by rail...but without a time piece handy.

1902 -  The Federation Drought had the populace on its knees already so they were given a public holiday to pray for rain while they were down there. Their calls were placed in a queue and answered as soon as an operator was available, which was June 9.

1907 - The Neath Colliery Branch Railway Line (NSW) was opened from Neath - Neath Colliery.

1914 - Douglas Mawson and the crew of the Aurora received a hero’s welcome on their return to Adelaide after their 2 year Australasian Antarctic Expedition.

1917 - Annie Isabel Rankine, Indigenous leader, was born at the Aboriginal Station Raukkan (Point McLeay) in South Oz.

1942 - A float plane from a Japanese sub made a reconnaissance joy flight over Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay.

1963 - Miss Jane started looking in the mirror and hallucinating seeing people who were at home in their lounge rooms. No, it wasn't a bad dose of rocket fuel but the beginnings of Romper Room....see me walk so straight and tall, I won't let my basket fall....
Code Purple to Miss Jane's room....

1965 - Talbot Duckmanton followed in the conga line behind Sir Charles Moses as chairman of The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC).

1968 -  Lionel Rose (1949-2011) outpointed Fighting Harada in Tokyo and became a national sports hero and an icon for Australia's indigenous community. Hundreds of thousands lined Melbourne's streets to welcome him home after his title triumph. He lost the world bantamweight title to Mexican Ruben Olivares in a fifth-round knockout in August 1969.

1973 - Prime Minister Gough Whitlam announced the establishment of diplomatic relations with Hanoi, but retained recognition of South Vietnam's Government.

1974 - The original inhabitant of Oz, Mungo Man, gave up his boney passport as evidence when the thigh bone connected to the hip bone at Lake Mungo, NSW.

1976 -  A group of beady-eyed divers from the Society for Underwater Historical Research located the remains of the Loch Vennacher off Kangaroo Island, 71 years after she went down with the loss of all.hands.

1983 - The Sydney Vice Squad led by Detective-Inspector Ernie Shepard raided the new Club 80 again. 11 men were charged with ‘scandalous conduct’.

1983 - The Oh So Fabulous Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras flounced its stuff to the theme of Our Lives/Our Selves.

1985 - A cultural festival of performance, exhibitions, forums, film and sports was held in conjunction with the Gay Mardi Gras.

1985 - Dwarf tossing raised its ugly head in a popular Surfer's Paradise nightclub as a jockey-throwing contest was ditched when no jockeys fronted up for the pleasure of being bodily bowled.

1986 - Soft Targets, a play about AIDS was held at the Stables Theatre, Nimrod Street, Kings Cross.

1991 - The LGBTI Outrage magazine was advertised on Australian commercial television.

1994 - Looking Good, the first Aboriginal gay and lesbian visual arts exhibition was held at Boomalli Aboriginal Artists’ Co-op.

1994 - Oz Lotto was launched.

1997 - The High Court announced it would allow Nick Toonen and Rodney Croome action against the Tasmanian government to proceed, paving the way for Tasmania’s anti-gay legislation to be found to be invalid.

2000 - Shop Yourself Stupid this year was extended to Broadway Shopping Centre and the Queen Victoria Building.

2005 - Retail Therapy, formerly Shop Yourself Stupid was pared back after the cancellation of its tie-in partner, the East Sydney Festival.

2006 -  In Australia Joseph Terrence Thomas (32), a former taxi driver known as "Jihad Jack" and alleged by prosecutors to be an agent for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, was convicted of receiving funds from the group but acquitted on more serious terrorism charges.

2009 - The Australian government announced a multi-million dollar investment in research on reducing gas emissions from farm animals as part of the fight against global warming.

2010 - Australia warned Japan that "diplomacy comes to an end this year" on whaling, after presenting a bold plan to phase out the controversial hunts in the Southern Ocean.

 2014 - Today marked 100 years since Australian geologist, Dr Douglas Mawson, returned from his two year Australasian Antarctic Expedition.

2015 - Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s famous bike became a part of Australian history, due to the bike being
donated by the Prime Minister to the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House.

Twenty Third day of the month of October throughout the not-so-many eons of Oz history

1786 - Barron Field, who claimed to be the first poet of Australia *ahem* and was for a number of years an actual judge in New South Wales, was hatched today.


1789 - A 15 year old Matthew Flinders' joined the Royal Navy at the muster of the ship Alert, although her did not sail on her. 
*He's important as he sailed all around Oz, but more importantly he was proudly owned by a cat named Trim.

1803 - Rev. Robert (Bobby) Knopwood conducted the Very First Anglican Church Parade on the spot that is now Sorrento, Victoria, as part of the brand new Collins Settlement in which the convicts, in tattered clothes, were told to give thanks for their safe arrival.

Nice.

1813 - Erstwhile explorer, Ludwig Leichhardt, was pupped in Prussia (now Germany) before he, too got itchy feet to go tramping all over the Fair Isle of Oz.... until he didn't.

1823 - John Oxley farewelled his friends as he tip-toed through the tulips on his way outta Sydney to scope out the areas northwards for a suitable site for a new settlement, as he surveyed the coast betwixt Gladstone and Fingal Head in the previously mentioned HMSC Mermaid (that Phillip Parker King drove into a tree!!!) which led to the Brisbane River discovery of the Oxley person paddling about its tootsies.

Ballroom dancing, anyone?

1861 - South Australian John McKinlay’s relief expedition to locate Burke and Wills found the burial site of party member Charles Gray.

1861 - John Davis, fellow member of John McKinley's expedition, wrote in his diary;

"Awfully hot day, and no wind to help us. We read today the story of poor Kennedy's sad exploring expedition. Poor fellow, perhaps we may all of us share the same fate as his companions, who all died or were killed, like himself, on their perilous journey, with the exception of a black fellow. Watch kept all night; natives close at hand." [sic]

1862 Jackey – Indigenous man. Hanged at Bathurst for the sexual assault of Louisa Brown at Winburndale.

1884 Thomas Henry Carbury was Hanged at the Perth Gaol for the murder of Constable Hackett at Beverley.

1893 George Thomas Blantern was Hanged at Boggo Road Gaol for the murder of Flora McDonald at Marlborough Station.

1907 - Augustin De Kitchilan was Hanged at Fremantle Prison for the murder of Leah Fouracre at Peppermint Grove Farm.

1907 - Today saw the opening of the Australian Exhibition of Women’s Work in Melbourne's glorious Exhibition Building by Lady Northcote, (spouse of 1st Baron Northcote aka Henry aka 3rd Governor-General), with Pattie Deakin, (spouse of 2nd PM Alfred Deakin), running a very popular model creche during the five-week exhibition showcasing the work of musicians, artists and craftswomen, which was open to ALL women, including Aboriginal/Indigenous women.

Lady Northcote

1917 - Early wee hours saw the explosion of a brilliantly hued meteor over Ballarat

1937 – The ACTU politely requested that the Oz Government cease and desist trading with Japan, following the not-so-polite Japanese invasion of China.

1942 – The Battle of El Alamein, in Egypt, began with a massive artillery bombardment preceding attacks by British and Australian divisions.

1965 - Canberrans were celebrating (maybe) at the grand opening (not really) of their first two sets of traffic lights in the Great Capital of Oz. Only 32 years and 10 days (but who's counting?) after the Traffic Tarts of Sydney were shaking their ra-ras at their own new-fangled traffic light.

1976 - Much of southern Australia experienced a total solar eclipse....scare.

The city shat itself over the whole eclipse, scared the utter bejebus out of the populace with WARNINGS in the MSM, on the radio INTERRUPTING chit-chat with REPEATED WARNING WARNING WARNINGS  DO NOT LOOK AT THE SUN repeatedly all over the shop like a mad woman's washing.

Much of southern Australia wasn't told to sit under the table in their aunt's kitchen, so much of Australia missed out on the lamingtons and lemonade.

22 Twenty twoooooooo October History

1858 The Lying In Hospital that opened today wasn't actually for women who were lazing their days away and you might know it better as the Melbourne Royal Women's Hospital...or whatever they've rebranded themselves as now.

Bendigo Advertiser

1894 Martha Needle was not a very nice lady.
Many people agreed with this sentiment when she was found guilty and hanged at Melbourne Gaol for poisoning her hubby, children and brother-in-law for the in$urance money.
*As a side note, the sea wall at St Kilda was built using bluestone bricks from Old Melbourne Gaol, 14 of them marked with initials and dates of executed people, including Martha herself.

1945 - Today the Royal Australian Navy decommissioned, then handed back the borrowed HMAS Nepal to the Royal Navy which later broke up the ship in 1956.

1956 - Part of the British nuclear tests was codenamed Breakaway; exploded on this day was 10.8 kilotonnes of TNT (45 TJ) from a tower. You can google the images and see what a mess was made.

1965 - A demonstration against the Vietnam War was held in Sydney with 65 people being arrested.

1999 - The leader of the National Party, Pat McNamara announced the (state) National Party would split from the coalition which they had formed with the (state) Liberal Party in 1990.
Didn't last long.

2007 - It was reported that Swedish museum officials handed back the remains of 10 Aboriginal people which had been illegally smuggled out of Australia 100 years before.

2021 - Melbourne waltzed itself out of the last of the lock downs with announcements from the likes of Reuters it was the world's 'most locked down city'

And if you're alive to bitch about, you're welcome.

21 October in Australian history

1800 Where there's a fat sheep there's a fair wether....the good ship Buffalo toddled off to England from Oz with 6 sample Merino fleeces from John Macarthur...er, Mrs Macarthur who did all the hard yakka.

1818 Michael Howe went a' bushranging, changed his title from convict to "Lieutenant Governor of the woods" and ended up in a sticky mess; being shot by Private William Pugh and convict Thomas Worrall will do that, even on the banks of the Shannon River, Tasmania.

1886 - George Chaffey signed a mad-arse agreement with the Victorian Govt to knock together an irrigation settlement at Mildura.

1890 - Proclamation Day on 21 October 1890 was the real beginning of self-government in Western Australia. Proclamation Day was celebrated throughout the Colony; streets were lined with decorations, and events including sports, picnics and, in Perth itself, a 'Monster Tea'. At night fireworks and balls were staged. For many years after 1890 a public holiday known as Proclamation Day was celebrated on 21 October each year and in recent years ceremonies have been arranged on 21 October to commemorate the establishment of the State's Constitution.

1915 -  Vera Deakin, daughter of former PM Alfred Deakin, established Australia's Red Cross Missing and Wounded Enquiry Bureau in Cairo.

1940 Pastor Doug Nicholls made a basic plea for Indigenous Peoples to be treated as equals.

Townsville Daily Bulletin

1957 - Excitement, peoples! Australia's very first automatic telephone weather service made it's grand entrance in Melbourne today.

1969 - Zelda D'Aprano went to the Commonwealth Building, where a number of government offices were located, and chained herself to the entrance of the building in protest for Equal Pay.

1972 - Yippee! The Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric Scheme was officially done and dusted, opened and online.

1978 – Civilian pilot Frederick Valentich went missing in a Cessna 182 over Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.

1985 - Throughout October 1985 Australian unions carried out industrial bans targeting the racist regime in South Africa. These covered aviation, shipping, building, mail, telecommunications and other industries, then finished with a march and rally in Sydney outside South African Airways on October 21. Their action came after the 1985 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting(CHOGM) meeting in the Bahamas watered down sanctions against apartheid.

2000 - The newly built Melbourne Museum was officially flung open for the great unwashed masses to mass.

2002 – Two people were killed in the Monash University shooting, while five others were injured.

20 October all day til midnight

 1862 The rails sang as the first official train rocked up to Sandhurst aka Bendigo from Melbourne. 

1899 The World's Oldest Blogger , young Olive Riley, was found in the cabbage patch at Broken Hill, and she commenced blogging to promote the idea that "one is not too old for the internet"

All About Olive

1900 Aussies off to war. New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia sent naval contingents as part of a British empire force deployed against anti-western Chinese secret societies.

1939 Compulsory military training Six weeks after Australia entered the Second World War, Menzies announced the reintroduction of compulsory defence training, to take effect on 1 January 1940. Unmarried men aged 21 were required to undergo 3 months training with the militia.

1966 Australia was formally Blessed when the POTUS, LB Johnson, popped in for a chinwag with Harold Holt (before he did the bolt)

1973 The Sydney Opera House was flung opened with gay abandon by the late great Elizabeth II.

1987 Everyone had their tits in a tangle. The Black Monday stock market crash caused the All Ordinaries Index to fall 25%, the single biggest one day drop in the market's history.

1989 The Grafton bus crash occurred, resulting in 21 people killed and 22 injured when a tourist bus collided with a semi-trailer on the Pacific Highway near Grafton.

2023 They didn't care to hear about the plague anymore...

Or some such.

19th October through Oz History

1800 - Napoleon issued instructions to Baudin and Hamelin, who sailed in the Geographe and the Naturaliste, to explore the east and south coasts of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).

1812 – Indefatigable, the first direct convict transport from Britain to Tasmania rocked up in Hobart.

1824 - Having gone for a Sunday ramble around the block to go have a gander at that new Port Phillip, Hume and Hovell managed to eyeball the very fast flowing, very flooded Murrumbidgee River.

1826 - Edwin Smith Hall birthed Sydney's third newspaper, The Monitor.

1833 Great Aussie poet, who wasn't too shabby on the back of a horse, Adam Lindsay Gordon was pupped.

1872 – Holtermann's nugget, a 286 kg slab of granite containing 82.11 kg of gold, was found in New South Wales.

1887 - The steamer SS Cheviot was wrecked at Point Nepean, Victoria, with 35 lives lost.

The nearby beach was afterwards named Cheviot Beach.

This is from where the then-Prime Minister Harold Holt disappeared.

1897 - Today saw the delivery of a top chick who helped so many other women made into widows by war  they should have bronzed the baby shoes of the future Mrs Jesse Vasey.

1900 – Bill Ponsford, Australian batsman who twice broke the world record for the highest first-class score, was pupped in North Fitzroy, Melbourne.

1919 - The Darwin Rebellion was finally at an end when the despot ruler Dr Gilruth was evacuated with his family out of the NT.

1945 -The War Widow's Guild of Australia was formed today by Jesse Vasey OBE CBE.

1966 - NZ went all the way with LBJ for the US President's whirl-wind 24 hour visit.

1974 - First general election for the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly was held in the NT and was won by the Country Liberal Party.

1979 - The Aussie Federal Police was formed. This was achieved by merging the Commonwealth Police, ACT Police and the Narcotics Bureau.

1991 – The perjury trial of former Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen ends in a hung jury. Prosecutors decide against a retrial on the basis of Joh's advancing age & divided public opinion.

2000 – Charles Perkins, Aboriginal activist died.

2001 – SIEV-X, an Indonesian fishing boat en route to Christmas Island, carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sank in international waters with the loss of 353 people.

2022 - The first War Widows Day, on the birthday of Jesse Vasey, founder of the War Widows Gild, was celebrated in QLD and NSW.

2024 - The National War Widows Day will be held and celebrated nationally so that all war widows can participate and be honoured in their sacrifice to our country.

18 October Stuff that happened throughout Oz in history

1790 – HMS Supply returned from Batavia with more supplies for the colony. 

1847 The forced exile of Tasmanian Aboriginal People to Wybalenna on Flinders Island paved the way for the unimpeded ongoing invasion of Tasmanian Aboriginal Lands, but the so-called 'friendly mission' came to an end today when the settlement was closed  and the remaining 14 men, 23 women and 10 children were removed and taken to the former convict station at putalina/Oyster Cove.

1854 – Billy Murdoch, regarded as the finest cricket batsman of his day, was hatched in Sandhurst, Victoria.

1869 – The Lithgow Zig Zag Railway was opened. 

1907 - Several of the already-formed new Surf Lifesavings Clubs created the Surf Bathing Association of NSW. Surf Lifesaving clubs soon spread all around the Isle of Oz, with estimations that more than 800,000 people have been saved over the decades.

1909 - NSW agreed to peacefully surrender the spare 2,400 sq. kms it had kicking around in the backyard behind the shed to become the seat what the Federal Govt could shine it's trousers on... the A.C.T Australian Capital Territory, whose own capital is Canberra.

1919 – Adrian Knox was appointed as the second Chief Justice of Australia. 

1924 - From the sheep farm in Shag Valley, NZ, Frank Bell sent the first radio transmission to zip smartly around the globe to London, where it was received and replied to by Cecil Goyder.

1934 – Charles Prince of Morphettville was found guilty of fraud for the "ring in" of Redlock at the Murray Bridge Racing Club on July 28. 

Redlock Fraud

1934 -  Having popped in for a spot of tennis, the Duke of Gloucester sang for his supper by officially opening the Centenary celebrations for Victoria.

1944 - HMAS Geelong was one of four corvettes lost during the Second World War. It collided with an American merchant ship off New Guinea.

1967 -  HMAS Perth struck by return fire near Cape Lai, Vietnam, while on the United States 7th Fleet 'gunline'. This was the only occasion on which an Australian warship suffered casualties from enemy fire during the Vietnam War.

1973 - Patrick White, author, won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1973 - 'The Art of Aboriginal Australia', the first major international exhibition of contemporary Australian Indigenous art, was first exhibited in the new purpose-built gallery at the Art Gallery of NSW before it was exhibited in Canada.

2021 - Following the destruction of Indigenous Heritage sites at Juukan Gorge, the Australian Senate referred an inquiry to the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia for a report by 30 September 2020. The inquiry had to be extended, and it published its final report on 18 October 2021. The final report of the inquiry found that Rio Tinto's actions were “inexcusable and an affront, not only to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) but to all Australians”. Further, the report found that the disaster could happen again because legislation designed to protect cultural heritage has often “directly contributed to damage and destruction”.