16 October in Oz

1817 HMSC Mermaid was commissioned on this day ; the Mermaid was the infamous boat in which Phillip Parker King surveyed and chartered the coastline of Oz - and which he managed to drive and crash into a boab tree at what he named as Careening Bay on the Kimberley coast.

Nary a drink or drugs tester in sight.

THEN he had the sheer cheek to carve it into history by carving 'HMC Mermaid 1820' into the aforementioned boab tree.

Hmph, some people...!

1835 Exciting things were happening in the Port Phillip colony with the arrival of John Fawkner and his missus and ankle biters...he celebrated his 43rd birthday a mere four days later by completing the roof on the house he'd just knocked together.

1849 On the Cape York Peninsula Barbara Thompson had been a castaway who'd lived with the local Kaurareg for 5 years before being rescued by HMS Rattlesnake at Evans Bay on this date when she could finally get some decent shoes.

1852 The migrant ship Georgiana was anchored in Port Phillip Bay when the crew had a hankering for the goldfields; after a little mutiny that resulted in the demise of one of the ships' officers, they took to their heels and headed for them thar hills. 

1852 T'was a sunny Sat'dee arvo when bushrangers progressively bailed up and robbed 19 people, all within a few hours, on that little sandy track now known as Brighton Road, St Kilda, at approx. the spot where the Elsternwick Hotel now squats (oh, the tales I could tell about that establishment...!).

1854 There was a major robbery on the Bank of Victoria in Ballarat with up to £15,000 stolen.

1863 Good old Daisy Bates, she who protected and documented many of the Indigenous Peoples, their cultures, languages and wrote a book on her experiences, was pupped on this day. in Tipperary, Ireland.
She was also, briefly, hitched in unholy matrimony to Breaker Morant in 1883 but this must have slipped her mind when she wed, bigamously, a second time to John Bates in 1885.
Oops.

1936 Kiwi flyer Jean Batten took to the skies from Australia in the final leg of her challenge to fly from England - Oz - NZ.

She arrived at Mangere Aerodrome 10.5 hours after leaving Sydney, with the whole journey from England taking her 11 days and 45 mins.

1944 The blokes held a wild tea party at which they voted to rebrand their whole bag o' tricks under the name The Liberal Party of Australia.

1967 Royal Australian Navy Helicopters deployed to Vietnam.

1975 Balibo Five -

1982 At a national federal conference (a wild tea party, perhaps?) the peeps voted to change the brand name of their own bag o' tricks from National Country Party of Australia to just National Party of Australia.

Contrary to popular opinion many did not change their clocks or their socks at the same time.