23 July Australian History

1773  Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, namesake of Brisbane aka Party Town Bris-Vegas, was found in the cabbage patch.

1888 The South Coast Railway Line (NSW) was gaily thrown open from Coal Cliff to Clifton. Party.

1891 The Powers That Be in Victoria Railways plonked down some extra track betwixt Beechworth and Yackandandah.

1909 The very first council meeting of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia was held in all its glory.

1938 Bert Newton, award-winning media personality, was hatched.

1946 After the war, as the wartime signals intelligence units were wound down, government approval-in-principle for a new peacetime signals intelligence organisation was given on this day.

Aussie Signals Directorate was pupped.

*waves to the super spies*

1993 Youse can all get stuffed if youse don't like opals cos today the Big Bloke, who was wearing the Governor-General Tiara brimming with these beauties, Bill Hayden, declared that opals were the national gemstone.

22 July Australian History

1802 He of the forever itchy feet, Captain Matthew Flinders, set sail yet again and charted the east coast of Oz, then the Gulf of Carpentaria, then a little further west , a bit more south and what do you know Bungaree had become the first Indigenous Aussie to circumnavigate the Fair Isle of Oz, bringing his mate Flinders along for funsies.

1870   A state flag of South Australia was adopted. Woot.

1888 The Derwent Valley Railway Line (Tas) was extended to Glenora in a mad, giddy rush of Gunzel Appreciation.

1900 Fred Lane, (better known as GOLD! winning Olympian Frederick Claude Vivian Lane) won 2 GOLD! medals whilst being the first Aussie to represent The Fair Isle of Oz in water sports.

1938   The Australian National War Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, France was dedicated and opened by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth; Queen Elizabeth laid a small posy of poppies on the wreath laid by her husband, the King.

1979 ABC in Sydney and Melbourne presents the final instalment of multicultural television programs from the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS).

1981 Victoria’s television stations were forced to be restricted to only 2 hours of programming between 6 and 8pm to curb power use across the state following a snap strike called by power workers in the Latrobe Valley.

1983  Aviator and business bloke Dick Smith puttered over the finishing line of the first solo around the world helicopter flight.

2010 ABC gaily launched ABC News 24, the first 24-hour free-to-air news channel in Australia. Party.

21 July Australian History National Lamington Day

 National Lamington Day 

Lord Lamington was Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901 and it was in his household, nay in his very kitchen, where (or so the Legend of Lamington says) that a cook was faced with having only stale cake to serve to unexpected guests so she got creative. Lamingtons are a sponge cake dipped in chocolate then rolled in coconut, and considering Lady Lamington was pregnant (she gave birth to a son, Victor Alexander Brisbane William Cochrane-Baillie , on 23 July 1896) I surmise it was more likely that the chef/cook made the first Lamingtons with a pregnant lady suffering food cravings in mind.

One of the first, if not the first, media mention of Lamington Cake.

1855 Today saw the Order-In-Council to change the moniker of Tassie to...Tassie. Back in the day it was titled Van Diemen's (pronounced demon's) Land and, whilst we'd all like to refer to Taswegians as demons, some of them are quite nice, civilised humans. 
And even house trained.

1898 The then-Sydney Mayor, Mathew Harris, declared that the deliciously gorgeous Queen Victoria Market Building in Sydney was open for the good ladies to sashay their way gloriously through! Party.

1991 Lake Alexander, a man-made lake in Darwin, NT named in honour of a past Lord Mayor of Darwin, Alex Fong Lim, was officially opened on this day.

1979 Sweetheart the 5.1 metre saltie (salt water crocodile) was accidentally killed whilst being transported to a safer non-human area of the Northern Territory.

1991 Today saw the misplacement of the bow from the not-so-good-ship Kirki, just off the Western Australia coast, where they also managed to misplace 7,900 tonnes of oil.

2021 Today saw the trumpeting announcement that Bris-Vegas was chosen to host the 2032 Olympics and Paralympics. Party!

20 July Australian History

1888 The Women's Suffrage League was formed in South Australia.

1923 Victoria Railways got all silly and started introducing new fangled electric locomotives.

1972 By order of the government, 150 Australian Federal Police evicted the diplomatic staff and pro-landrights protestors, arrested eight people and removed the Tent Embassy by force. The violent eviction was followed by large-scale protests.

1975 The coast of NSW was gently washed and rinsed from the effects of a tsunami that originated in the Solomon Islands.

1979 Inaugural meeting of the National Farmers' Federation.

1989 Landcare became a nation-wide program when the Federal Govt announced the "Decade of Landcare" plan for the nation,  alongside the funding of $320 million.

1992 The Molong - Dubbo Railway Line (NSW) was kicked to the kerb.

2017 Jabiluka made news headlines in July with reports that a team of archaeologists had uncovered evidence confirming the colonisation of Australia at least 65,000 years ago.

19 July Australian History

1770 The Guugu Yimithirr people and Captain James Cook clashed over a dozen sea turtles that Cook's party caught for food near present-day Cooktown. Later, an Elder approached Cook, offering a broken spear as a gesture of reconciliation and the two parties settled their dispute.
The National Trust of Australia nominated the event as Australia's first documented act of reconciliation. The area where the two parties met is now known as Reconciliation Rocks.

Reconciliation Rocks.

1814 Matthew Flinders, the flute-playing, cat-loving map maker bloke (who probably came back as a long haired herbily enhanced hippie in the 1960s) dropped off the perch today, a mere 24 hours after his book was in print.

Following the rediscovery of his coffin during the HS2 excavations near London's Euston Station in 2019, today in 2024 he will be reinterred in his home village of Donington in Lincolnshire.

1873 Uluru was sitting in the sun, minding its own business when William Gosse eyeballed in a lascivious way and declared it to be Ayres Rock.

Hmph, rock my arse.
Uluru has always been called Uluru by the Anangu people. But it got renamed by that bloke who decided to add insult to injury by becoming the first known European to climb Uluru.

It was named, promoted, advertised all over the world as "Ayers Rock" until 1993, when it was baptised with the dual name Ayers Rock/Uluru. In 2002, the names were reversed, and is now known as Uluru/Ayers Rock.
BTW - Gosse named it after a politician/business bloke Sir Henry Ayers.

1958 The last tramline to be kicked to the kerb in Perth  (Western Australia) was the Inglewood Tram Line, which was replaced by trolley buses, but the final tram ran that evening.

1959 The railway line from Somerton to Upfield (Victoria) was reopened for Goods (freight) traffic for the brand-spanking-new Ford Motor Company.

1960 Australia's first aircraft hijacking took place today over Brisbane on the last Sydney-Brisbane flight for the day.

1965 UFO landed on Vaucluse Beach.

1989 After a series of mergers of regional educational institutions in NSW Charles Sturt University was officially incorporated today.

18 July Australian History

1814 Today saw Matthew Flinders' book, A Voyage to Terra Australis, finally in print where he named Australia... well, Australia.

A Voyage to Terra Australis.

1881 What eventually became Sydney's Prince Henry's Hospital started life as a sanitary camp at Little Bay for those suffering during a small pox epidemic.

1890 Crib Point was blessed by the Post Office Fairy Godmother when a post office was dropped off by the stork.

1910 Due to foggy weather obscuring the signals a Melbourne-bound train from Elsternwick ploughed into the back of a Melbourne-bound train from Brighton at Richmond Station.
Nine people died, 114 people were injured.

Train crash @ Richmond Station 18 July 1910

1914 Maurice Guillaux landed in Sydney - the first airmail delivery from Melbourne to Sydney was achieved.

Celebrating the arrival of the first airmail in Sydney from Melbourne 1914.

1966 Playschool dipped its round window into the turbid airwaves of telly when it debuted on the ABC in Oz.

1984 The National Crime Authority was established.

2005  Amy Gillett, cyclist and rower, was killed in Germany in a road accident.

17 July Australian History

1880 Today saw the last of the articles printed in the Queenslander newspaper that covered treatment of the Aboriginal People titled "The Way We Civilise"; written by journalist Carl Feilberg he fought for Aboriginal rights and against the blackbirding trade.

Blackbirding

1922 The North Coast Railway Line (NSW) was flung open with gay abandon from Coff's Harbour to Glenreagh.

1964 Donald Campbell got all Speedy Gonzales on Lake Eyre when he set the world record for four wheeled jet propelled vehicles at 403.10 mph.

1967 A mini Buffet service began serving up the hot tea on the Melbourne to Albury trains.

1976 The annual, long standing, Northern Territory News Walkabout was revived after a lapse and on a new course; this foot race has now since been discontinued.

2020 Border restrictions were lifted for interstate visitors coming into Northern Territory.

16 July Australian History

1800 – Reverends Richard Johnson and Samuel Marsden opened a church school at Ryde.
Which was just as well as newspapers at the time claimed the whole colony was the scene of

The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate

1847 The good ship Rattlesnake slithered into port at Sydney to float about doing a scientific survey and some charting bizzo; but the more important thang was that self-taught anatomist and biologist Thomas Huxley met his future wife Henrietta Heathorn. Party!

Thomas Huxley

Henrietta Heathorn

1888 Railway line betwixt Palmerston (Darwin) and Adelaide River began. Party!

1900 Australian Mounted Troops struck the North East to reach the railway lines behind the Boers in Pretoria.

1900 Aussie journo George Morrison was injured while rescuing a defender during the Chinese Boxer Rebellion.
George was better known for having walked all over Australia due to his itchy feet.

In 1910 John Duigan had nothing better to do so he built an aeroplane and flew it on this day on his parents property in Victoria.

1914  Maurice Guillaux left the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds in Flemington to fly to Sydney in a Blériot monoplane in the first delivery of airmail. He arrived in Sydney on 18 July after nine and a half hours of flying time.

1943 Australian troops advanced from Wau, New Guinea, toward Salamaua.

1956 HSV-7 in Melbourne began channelling the spirit world for test transmissions of the idiot box in monochrome (TCN-9 in Sydney had jumped the gun 3 days earlier).

1962  Public funding of private schools became an issue following a strike by parents and the community who closed Catholic schools in Goulburn, New South Wales on this day, resulting in government funding for private schools.

1986 An explosion at Moura No. 4 mine in Moura, Queensland killed 12 people.

The Rajah Quilt 19th July 1841

 The convict transport ship Rajah rocked up in Hobart on this date in 1841; 180 gals on board were given supplies for personal use as well as materials to sew of which they put to good use when they flashed their very advanced and talented artistry in embroidery and applique, in this quilt. This quilt was made in thanks to the British Ladies' Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners for providing the female convicts with the supplies.

 

Many, many, many more details of these ladies, their journey, their sewing skills and much more in the following links -
Sources;

NGA

Wikipedia

How a new play is leading the push to return an historic convict-sewn quilt back to Tasmania

Australia's Convict Quilt: Something to be proud of

National Quilt Register

Elizabeth Fry : The Angel of Prisons

15 July Australian History

1851 – Charles La Trobe, aka Charley Joe, was appointed as first Lieutenant Governor of Victoria.Party!

Charles La Trobe

1912 – The first branch of the Commonwealth Bank opened. Party!

1915 The first group of NZ wounded soldiers returned from Gallipoli to Wellington, NZ on board the ship Willochra. 

1918 HMAT Barunga was travelling to Australia with 800 sick and wounded when it was torpedoed on this day. Destroyers were quickly on the scene to pick up survivors and saved all the ships crew.

1922 A zoo in USA, the Bronx Zoo, had taken delivery of a male platypus and it was first put on display to the public on this day. Party!

1940 The Volunteer Defence Force, composed mainly of World War I veterans, was formed for home defence by the Returned Services League. 

1942 The 2nd NZ Division captured Ruwiesat Ridge.

1964 Rupert Murdoch *hack* brought his new toy out to show off ; a new fish n chip wrapper called The Australian. Hmph.

1971 Today saw the introduction of the HQ Holden Kingswood! Party!

1977 Anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay vanished near Griffith, presumed murdered. 

1978 Today saw the biggest LGBT rights protest/demonstration to date with more than two thousand people in attendance.

1995  The Queensland state election partied itself into a hung Parliament, but with the support of independent Liz Cunningham the Coalition (Liberal Party & National Party) formed the Government in Queensland. 

2009 A Tsunami warning was issued at 7: 46 pm by the Bureau of Meteorology following an earthquake measuring 7.9 just off the NZ coast.

14 July Australian History

 1770 Today was a shite day for a random kangaroo  ; a crew person on Cook's ship became the first European (that we know of) to eyeball a 'roo.
And then shot it.
It is not true that the word means “I don’t understand”; this is a popular myth often applied to various other Aboriginal-based Australian words.

1952 The main railway line roll-out of diesel powered engines along Victoria Railways began with the delivery of this delicious beast pictured below.

Photo from THIS FABULOUS RAIL RESOURCE

1981 The New Fort Hill Wharf, at Darwin, was opened.

1986 The Sheraton Hotel opened on Mitchell Street, Darwin. Currently known as Hilton Darwin.

1995 Governor General of Australia William Hayden proclaimed both the Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag to be 'Flags of Australia' under the Flags Act 1953.

13 July Australian History

 1888 The Star of Greece, a three masted clipper ship, was wrecked on a reef only 200 metres from Port Willunga and within sight of shore but not anywhere near rescue equipment. The captain with most of the crew had been clinging to the mizzen mast rigging where they had been drowned.

Star of Greece

1903 The railway line from Coburg to Somerton was closed due to a rail strike.

1919 The Main South Railway Line now stretches from Central Station in Sydney allllll the way down the slippery dip into the Cabbage Patch aka Victoria and to Marvellous Melbourne...but back in 1919 they were all a'flutter about the line being connected betwixt Picton and Mittagong Junction.

1943 It was agreed that all chemical ammunition (loading and unloading) was to be handled by trained service personnel and that any other non chemical cargo that was stored with the chemical would also to be handled by these personnel.

1945 UK may have Lady Jane Grey, the 9 Day Queen but we beat that with Francis Ford, The 8 Day Queen Caretaker PM.
You wore your crown with pride, Francis!

1945 – Ben Chifley was crowned The Sixteenth Prime Minister of Australia.

1958 The foundation stone was laid for St Mary's War Memorial Cathedral, Darwin.

1997 A crowd of over 100,000 people gathered to watch the Royal Canberra Hospital implosion. Twelve-year-old Katie Bender was killed when debris from the site travelled across Lake Burley Griffin.

On This Day in Australian TV - TOO many to list here, you will have to go to the site for a good stickybeak down memory lane.

12 July Australian History

 1818 The Wallambangle River found a pesky chap named George Evans pottering about it's skirts, and was a tad miffed to be told it would now be known as the Castlereagh River, named after the bloke who was then wearing the tiara of the Secretary of The Colonies.

1863 British forces invade Waikato ,NZ

1889 The first women's trade union was formed in NZ in response to the totally crap working conditions in the clothing industry.

1911 The Scottsdale Railway Line (Tas) extended to Branxholm on this very fine day.

1922 The Tasmanian Government Railways line was extended to Wiltshire Junction on this day connecting with the already existing line between Stanley and Smithton.

1942 The Aussies reached Kokoda in New Guinea.

1945 HMAS DIAMANTINA reported the finding of a small roll of paper, identified as a carrier-pigeon message, in the stomach of a shark caught off Saposa, New Guinea.
The message was translated and found to be an appeal for assistance from the 42nd ALC Company, Japanese Army, 7 July, 1945.

1965 Last 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, ambush of Malayan Emergency.

1979 The former Gilbert Islands sashayed her way down the Big Blue Marble catwalk in her new guise as the newly INDEPENDENT Republic Of Kiribati (pronounced Kiri - bas). Party!

1983 At a community meeting at The Laird Hotel in Collingwood to address the then-developing health crisis of HIV/AIDS the Victorian AIDS Action Committee was formed (now known as Thorne Harbour Health).

11 July Australian History

 

1858 The first completed stage of St Francis Xavier Cathedral, Adelaide, was consecrated today by Father Michael Ryan.

1867 The Main Western Railway Line (NSW) was gaily opened from Penrith to Blaxland Junction.

1877 Today Kate Edger became the first female Kiwi of the species to earn a university degree and the first gal of the British Empire to earn a Bachelor of Arts.

Kate Edger

1882 The Mungindi Railway Line (NSW) was opened today from Gunnedah to Boggabri

1979 Skylab, the first space station, crashed on through the atmosphere to land in parts of Western Australia.

1983 New Zealander Lorraine Downes was crowned Miss Universe; after a career in modelling, Lorraine competed in , and won, the second season of Dancing with The Stars in 2006 raising $112,000 for the Child Cancer Foundation.

1990  Sarah MacDiarmid, age 23, vanished from, and was likely murdered at Kananook railway station, Melbourne. The crime remains unsolved.

1997 Australians were evacuated from Phnom Penh following a bloody coup

10 July Australian History

1901 The Royal yacht, Ophir, sailed gaily up the Port River to Port Adelaide with the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall - later known as King George V and his lovely missus Queen Mary.

1911 HRH King George V granted the title of “Royal” for the Royal Australian Navy and it’s Permanent Commonwealth Naval Forces and the Royal Australian Naval Reserve.

1934 The Peak Branch Railway Line (NSW) was flung open betwixt Peak Junction and Occidental Mine.

1936 The 1928 Animals and Birds Protection Act listed the Tiger on the 'wholly unprotected' schedule, and it was not 'wholly protected' until 10 July 1936, only 59 days before it became officially extinct – when the last known tiger died in the Beaumaris Zoo.

Thylacine

1956 The Westbury Branch Railway Line was closed betwixt Westbury Junction and Mangoplah.

1967 New Zealand kicked ye olde pounds, shillings and pence to the kerb in favour of getting all decimal with yon currency.

1985 The Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, was sunk in Auckland Harbour by French secret agents who had attached explosives to the hull.
One person was killed, a Portuguese photographer named Fernando Pereira.

Rainbow Warrior

2004 Someone had a few brain cells when they reopened the Ballarat to Ararat Railway Line.

9 July Australian History

1791 The Mary Ann, a ship operating independently of the Third Fleet, rocked up in New South Wales, bringing with her 141 female convicts and six children, as well as stores and nine months provisions for the women.

Read here of Elizabeth Lee, Lancashire Lass who travelled on the ship Mary Ann.

Mary Ann

1837 As early as this date the spot for a picnic, aka the Adelaide Botanic Garden, had *possibly been chosen with a drunken game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
*Probably not.

1900 Queen Victoria ( she who was never amused but enjoyed the rumpy pumpy) flourished a quill on a bit of parchment that signed The Fair Isle of Oz into the Commonwealth of Oz, which got all frivolous and Federated on January 1, 1901.

1908 The NSW Railway chaps were doing a silly dance (maybe) to celebrate the opening of the Tocumwal Branch Line, from Tocumwal Bridge to Tocumwal.
Tocumwal, from the local Indigenous Bangarang word 'Tocumival' (meaning deep hole).

1971 The Australian Aboriginal Flag , designed by Harold Thomas, was first raised at a land rights rally in Victoria Square/Tarntanyangga, Adelaide, on the then-National Aborigines Day.
From 1940 until 1955, the Sunday before Australia Day was the Day of Mourning, now known as Aborigines Day.

1977 The last Traralgon to Maffra railmotor service operated.
1977 The last Castlemaine to Maryborough railmotor service operated

8 July Australian History

1861 Railway carriages were rocketing up the Great Divide with the opening of the line from Sunbury to Woodend (Vic)

1866 Ballarat & District Orphan Asylum opened.

1882 Percy Grainger, Australian pianist, composer and curious critter, was pupped in Melbourne;

he played an important role in reviving interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century.

 1886 Queen Victoria granted John George Clunies-Ross and his descendants the Cocos Islands ‘in perpetuity’. Some members of the Clunies-Ross family still live on the Cocos Islands, as they are known, even though the Australian government bought almost all the Clunies-Ross land on Cocos Islands in 1978. 

1901 Things were rocking on with the Oatland Branch Line (NSW) opening from The Rock to Lockhart.

1904 Sydney’s electricity supply was officially switched on.

1915  The 10th Battalion (South Australia) left Anzac for a 3-day rest period on Imbros island. Captain Nott, the battalion medical officer, wrote:
A perfect holiday picnic

 1936 The Federal Government announced an increase in military training strength of other people's sons, in response to the rise of fascism in Europe. 

1942 460 Squadron raids Wilhelmshaven

1959 The Avoca to Ararat Railway Line was kicked to the kerb.

 1963 Margaret Court became the first Australian woman to win the Women's Singles tennis championship at Wimbledon. 

1991 The first share offer for the newly privatised Commonwealth Bank was flung about merrily with gay abandon. 

 2005 Defecting Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin was in the Aussie Govt chook raffle one Friday night when, lo and behold, he won a protection visa.

2010 PM Julia Gillard ruled out a Carbon Tax.

2022 Hospitals were under extreme pressure with both a surge in Covid infections and the winter flu hitting people hard

On This Day in Oz History 7 July

1841 Scottish explorer Edward Eyre reached Albany. on an expedition that saw the murder of John Baxter, Eyre's assistant/co-explorer.
For this Eyre was awarded the founder's gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1847.

In 1997 the Ngadju-Mirning man Arthur Dimer said it was Eyre who killed Baxter in a fit of rage because Baxter was drunk; the two South Australian Aboriginal people fled in fright and were speared by Mirning people who were observing the expedition’s progress.

1907 The Australian Navy Cadets was established and commenced activities today. 

1915 Cholera inoculations began at Anzac.

1916 The New Zealand Labour Party was formed at a conference in Wellington.

1942 Papuan and Australian troops began operations along the Kokoda Track. 

1942 Horn Island bombed by the Japanese. Horn Island was bombed a total of 9 times during WW2.

1942 9th Division went into action at El Alamein. 

 1942 The Air Board gave a resounding Yay to taking over the disused Picton Railway tunnel in NSW to store conventional bombs. 

 1956 Last RAAF transports returned from Korea. 

 1960 The frightening, dreadful, sad kidnapping of poor little Graeme Thorne. 

1974 At the height of apartheid in South Africa New Zealand imposed a blanket ban on virtually all visits by sports teams from South Africa.

 1986 Brian Chambers and Kevin Barlow became the first westerners executed in Malaysia under strict new Asian drug-trafficking laws. 

 1991 The Australian Republican Movement was formed amidst a growing debate about Australian republicanism. 

 2001 Australian cricketer Karen Rolton smashed an unbeaten 209 to set a new world record for the highest score in a women's Test in Australia's 9 wicket win v England at Headingley. 

 2002 The British Naval destroyer HMS Nottingham (D91) was certainly NOT trying a handbrake U-turn when they happened to run aground off Lord Howe Island.

July 6 in Oz history

 Ha!
Discovered many of my long reliable history bookmarks are now doing the whole,
"404 we don't know you, new webpage, who dis?" 
Keeping me out of mischief hunting down new RELIABLE web sources.

1813 Elizabeth Macarthur, manager of Merino sheep on Elizabeth Farm whilst the troublesome spouse was sticking his oar into all sorts of mischief, sent the first commercial shipment of wool to Britain.

Elizabeth Macarthur 

1841 Edward John Eyre, was out for a Sunday perambulation post Sunday lunch when he tripped over the King's River, just short of his intended Final Destination of King George's Sound. Finding the river too high to cross on horse back, he tip-toed through the tulips and trout to t'other side.

1863 Letters, of the Patent variety not the air-mail sort, were blessed and signed by Queen Vicky annexing the Top End from the Croweaters in South Australia.

1878 The Main South Railway Line (NSW) was flung open from Bethungra to Junee.

1914 The railway line from Crib Point to the HMAS Cerberus Naval Base (Vic) was opened with gay abandon.

1924 The Mount Hope Branch Line (NSW) was closed from Matakana to Mount Hope.

1936 The Final Destination of the Derwent Valley Railway Line, Tasmania, was reached today when they got to Kallista.

1943 Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory, was heavily bombed by Japanese 64 times, today being the last of the heavy bombing although less severe attacks continued.

1955 The Westland District Second World War memorial (RSA building) at Sewell St, Hokitika, NZ was officially opened today by local MP Mr J.B. Kent. The two-storey building incorporated a lobby, the local RSA clubrooms and a social hall. This building was closed because of earthquake risk in June 2013 and demolished in July 2014. The new Hokitika-Westland memorial hall and clubrooms was opened on the site of the old building on 28 February 2017.

1963 The Advertiser (of Adelaide) let it be known to all and sundry that the glorious trolley buses that had toddled about for 31 years were to be no more after the 12th July.

1964 Warrant Officer Kevin Conway from Brisbane became first Australian serviceman to be killed in Vietnam.

1970 Draft resister Karl Armstrong was sentenced in Melbourne to eight days jail for defying the fine imposed for refusing to register.

1971 Three thousand demonstrators caused mayhem at the first ‘Springboks’ match in Sydney at the SCG. There were 59 arrests.

1972 Commonwealth police raided DRU (Draft Resisters Union) headquarters Belmore Street Enmore looking for Peter Galvin.

1979 Brand spanking new LGBT news print media The Star Observer was thrust out into the world.

1983 The AIDS Action Committee (AAC) requested that its role on the NSW advisory AIDS committee be upgraded after it was relegated to merely writing material about AIDS. 

1983 In Lismore, NSW, a local social group, Summerland Gay People, was formed.

July 5 Australia History On This Day

1788 Governor Arthur Philip sent a despatch to the British Under-secretary of state cos Oz was turning spectacularly into Destination Fucked due to the lack of food. 
*We won't point out the obvious that they were surrounded by tucker*

1851 James Esmond made public the fact he'd tripped over a great lump of GOLD! in Clunes, Victoria.

James Esmond

1881 New Zealand Parliament passed the Chinese Immigration Act under which, having received Royal Assent, they then legislated a Poll Tax of £10 ($1,770 in todays money) on the-now restricted numbers of Chinese migrants.

1900 British Parliament passed the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act.
This document set out guidelines for how the Federation would be founded, and how the laws and authorities of The Fair Isle of Oz would be created, and was given Royal Assent on 9 July 1900.

1902 Today Australia fielded a decent team, it seems, as Oz won the only Test they played at Sheffield against England.

1905 Alfred Deakin had a blank spot on his dance card so tossed his hat into the ring for a second turn as PM.

1945 John Curtin had a nasty mischief; he popped his clogs in office.

John Curtin

1957 Lew Hoad won the Men Singles at Wimbledon when he beat fellow Aussie Ashley Cooper.

1967 New Zealand banks were closed today for bank staff to convert their records in readiness of the currency changing from Pounds and Pence to Dollars and Cents.

1968 Rod Laver won the Wimbledon Mens Singles against fellow Aussie Tony Roche.

1969 Rod was back at the scene of the crime when he won against Aussie John Newcomb.

1971 Two hundred protesters demonstrated at Sydney Town Hall against a reception for the ‘Springboks’.

1972 Commonwealth police raided the ABC TV studios at Gore Hill Sydney thirty minutes after underground draft resister (and DRU Secretary) Peter Galvin was interviewed on This Day Tonight.

1980 Evonne Goolagong Cawley beat Chris Evert for the Womens Singles at Wimbledon. 

Evonne Goolagong-Cawley

1981 Jan Stephenson waltzed off with the crown for the du Maurier Golf Classic. 

1987 Pat Cash , despite the 80s big hair, managed to win the Men Singles title at Wimbledon. 

2003 A memorial was dedicated on this day at Gordon, 4.3 km from the crash site of a DC-3 airliner in the Kaimai Range, Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. All 23 passengers and crew were killed in what still remains the worst air crash within New Zealand. 

SOURCES

Ballarat Gold Rush 

Labour History Timeline

4 July Australian History

 1857 - Hundreds of European miners on the search for GOLD! at Buckland River got more than a little casually racist when they went all thug-like on the settlement of 3,000 Chinese miners belting the living crap out of them until they died or left the area.

1868 Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki of Rongowhakaata, a Māori leader, was arrested in 1865 after allegedly spying. He became one of hundreds exiled to the remote Chatham Islands where he established the Ringatū faith, which was adopted by many of his fellow exiles. On this day he began an uprising; 300 prisoners overpowered their guards, captured the schooner Rifleman and sailed for New Zealand.

1918 The Battle of Hamel took place during the First World Disagreement.

1966 Nine young people were arrested and charged with obstruction for protesting against bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong at U.S Consulate in Sydney.

1967 A rally outside the U.S Consulate in Commercial Road, Melbourne, was followed by a march to a  meeting at the Assembly Hall in Collins Street. The highlight was the debate ‘LBJ’ v ‘Thomas Jefferson’ – ‘U.S independence 1776-Vietnam independence when?’

1968 A moratorium protest against the Vietnam War outside the US Embassy in Melbourne ended in violence as the crowd was having a free-for-all in in what became "the most violent protest in living memory" with the protesters being charged by mounted police.

1969 4000 demonstrators marched down St. Kilda Road towards the U.S Consulate in tight formation. Police on horseback charged protestors at the barricades. The following afternoon twenty Consulate windows were smashed by ‘Melbourne People’s Liberation Army’

1969 Sydney’s 1969 July 4 (‘Freedom Day’) rally highlighted by burning of U.S flag and effigies of Prime Minister Gorton outside U.S Consulate

1970 2000 demonstrators marched in Melbourne and occupied the road in front of Pan-American Airways building in Collins Street.

1970 600 protestors marched in Adelaide in militant demonstration against U.S imperialism.

1971 Police bashed demonstrators at U.S Consulate and South African Trade Commission in Melbourne.

1971 1000 protestors picketed outside the Squire Inn Motel,  Bondi Junction as ‘Springboks’ arrived in Sydney

1972 A lunch-time demonstration, of over 200 young people, gathered in Adelaide to mark American Independence Day with emphasis on U.S bombing of dykes and dams in North Vietnam

1975 Juanita Neilsen, victim in the still unsolved disappearance/murder of The Missing Heiress, was last seen alive on this date when she attended a meeting in Sydney's Kings Cross.

1991 World renown heart surgeon Dr Victor Chang AC was murdered in Sydney in a failed extortion attempt.

2002 American Steve Fossett became the first chappie to pilot a hot air balloon all on his lonesome all around the Big Blue Marble, plopping down in The Fair Isle of Oz 13 days after take-off.

2018 The Fair Isle of Oz and the USA celebrated a century of 'mateship".

Being 100 years since we got together and began killing people.

Sorry, 100 years since we first started fighting alongside each other at the Battle of Hamel under the command of General Sir John Monash.

2023 Australian rules player Heather Anderson sadly became the first known professional female athlete to be diagnosed with degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) after a landmark diagnosis at Australian Sports Brain Bank

SOURCES:

Labour History Melbourne

Chinese Victims of Buckland Riot

The Missing Heiress

Chilling new clues in missing heiress Juanita Nielsen’s cold case murder

Disappearance of Juanita Nielsen

Juanita Nielsen

History of Mateship

The Battle of Hamel

CTE: Brain disease diagnosed in female athlete for first time

World's first CTE diagnosis in a female athlete

Steve Fossett

Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute

Taking to the streets against the Vietnam War

3 July in Australian History

1797 Following much fighting between the European settlers and the Indigenous people in the Hawkesbury area Governor John Hunter sent a group of soldiers to protect the settlers.

1850 Tired of saddling their broomsticks and kick-starting their horses, The Powers That Were got the lads on the tools to begin construction of the First Ever Railway Line in The Fair Isle of Oz; actually t'was the daughter of the Governor Charles FitzRoy, the Honourable Mrs. Mary Stewart, who prettily modelled the spade whilst she turned the first sod of the Sydney Railway Company at Cleveland Paddocks to begin work on the Sydney-Parramatta Railway Line.

The Hon. Mrs. Mary Stewart, nee FitzRoy.

1915 A medical report from the 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station situated at Anzac Cove observed that “Dysentery is becoming very acute, and cases of extreme collapse are occurring”.

It is estimated that approximately 700 soldiers died from diseases.

1931 The Chemical Warfare Board was renamed as the Chemical Defence Board.

1942 Tea was now rationed; each adult was only allowed half a pound (approx. 230gms) of tea every 5 weeks.

This was in place for 8 years until 1 July 1950.

1947 Bust out the cake tin, Marge, SUGAR RATIONING HAS ENDED 

But don't bother with the teapot.

Sugar had been rationed since it was introduced nearly five years earlier, on 29 August 1942. 

Examiner

1989 The Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct (the Fitzgerald Inquiry; 1987–1989) ended with Tony Fitzgerald QC submitting his final report.

As a result, a number of high-profile politicians were charged with crimes, and Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis was charged with corruption.

Sources:

Golden Gifts for a Governor's Daughter

Public Health at ANZAC Cove

Dysentery and the ANZAC Legend

The Gallipoli Campaign

Chemical Warfare in Australia Timeline

Part 3 of Australian Frontier Wars; The Hawkesbury Nepean Wars

The Fitzgerald Inquiry

The Fitzgerald Inquiry Report

The Fitzgerald Inquiry - The History Lesson We Must Never Forget