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.