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.