1854 - The Melbourne Exhibition opened; which included the opening of the first Exhibition Building, and a right old knees up with cocoa and rout cakes to see the final stragglers off on their broomsticks after sunset...
1854 Hearing that Bentley got off scott free for the untimely demise of James Scobie in his hotel, the Ballarat miners started a wee riot that got so hot under the collar that the Eureka Hotel got a bit more than singed and crispy around the edges.
1964 - Australian athlete Betty Cuthbert earned her 4th Olympic gold medal when she won the women's 400m at the Tokyo Games in Olympic record 52.0.
1973 QE II and Prince Phillip beamed down from the Mother Ship to the Land of Oz for a short but sweet visit which included the grand opening of the Sydney Opera House.
2010 - Fitzroy-born lass, Mary MacKillop was canonised by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop is Australia's first saint and throughout the universal Catholic church is now to be 'honoured devoutly among all the saints'.
1854 Hearing that Bentley got off scott free for the untimely demise of James Scobie in his hotel, the Ballarat miners started a wee riot that got so hot under the collar that the Eureka Hotel got a bit more than singed and crispy around the edges.
1861 - The inaugural Melbourne Cup blasted off ....which overshadowed the
1861 - Cullin-la-Ringo Massacre. In what is thought to be the largest massacre of white settlers by Australian aborigines, the killings occurred after a group of settlers from Victoria led by politician Horatio Wills, set up a camp at Cullin-la-Ringo, which is located in present-day Central Queensland. 19 people were killed during the massacre.
1898 - A bloke who loved books more than those flighty sheilas, David Scott Mitchell made it known throughout the land that he intended to leave his extensive Australiana collection to the Sydney Public Library so long as they pulled their fingers out and gave it a proper roof over it's head.
Subsequently the separate wing, The Mitchell Library, was cobbled together.
1898 – The Perth Zoo opened with two lions and a tiger and no bears, oh, my.
1898 - A bloke who loved books more than those flighty sheilas, David Scott Mitchell made it known throughout the land that he intended to leave his extensive Australiana collection to the Sydney Public Library so long as they pulled their fingers out and gave it a proper roof over it's head.
Subsequently the separate wing, The Mitchell Library, was cobbled together.
1900 – Natural gas was found at Roma in Queensland... well, that's what they want everyone to believe, but in reality those Banana Benders were seriously addicted to baked beans
1917 – The two halves of the Trans-Australian Railway finally met, joining Western Australia to the eastern states.
1917 - Sumner Locke Elliott, Australian (later American) novelist, and author of Careful, He Might Hear You, was hatched in Sydney.
1938 – Les Murray, poet and essayist was pupped in Nabiac, New South Wales.
1949 - The Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme went off like a frog in a sock with the Chief Engineer William Hudson firing the first blast at the now-drowned town of Adaminaby
1964 - Lake Burley Griffin , a planned puddle in our nation's capital, was finally filled and was inaugurated by the then-Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies.
1973 QE II and Prince Phillip beamed down from the Mother Ship to the Land of Oz for a short but sweet visit which included the grand opening of the Sydney Opera House.
2010 - Fitzroy-born lass, Mary MacKillop was canonised by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop is Australia's first saint and throughout the universal Catholic church is now to be 'honoured devoutly among all the saints'.
