17 October in Australian history

1854 – The Melbourne daily newspaper The Age was first published. 

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.

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 – 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 -  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.

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.

Visit Canberra

History of Lake Burley Griffin

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'.

Top chick.

2018 - Australian state of Queensland decriminalized abortion

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.

15 October in Things that happened on a Fairly Large Island through history

1810 Get Frocked, ladies!

Get gussied up to the nines, girls, the 73rd Regiment held the FIRST official HORSE RACE on this lump of soil known as Oz, in Hyde Park, Sin-City (Sydney).

First Sydney Races

1840 The first land sales of Portland were haggled over, fought over and went off like a frog in a sock at Melbourne, Victoria. Prices were as high as the perfume of some socks owing to the fact Portland was a serious contender as Big Smoke for the Southern Region of The Fair Isle of Oz.

1851 That banking badboy, con artist, Ben Boyd fell off the face of the earth when he popped in as the bite to eat with the native peoples at Guadalcanal Island , or so rumour has it, whilst doing a runner from creditors in his yacht Wanderer.

1871 The Germans in South Oz held a large festival in Tanunda to celebrate peace at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.

1895 The Gambling Act was passed with the canapes in sunny Qld which forced Tattersall's to up sticks and shift to Hobart in Tassie.

1915 General Sir John Monash was awarded the Companion of the Order of the Bath(CB).

1940 RAAF Base Townsville was hatched with the motto;

Guarding The North.

1953 Things were really starting to go off like a frog in a sock when the first British nuclear weapons testing on mainland Oz began with a blast into the past at Emu Fields in Crow Eater country South Australia.

Australia's Atom History

1970 The Westgate Bridge in Melbourne fell to earth, killing 35 workmen and injuring 17 more.

1970 Three cheers for the unions who passed a general Black Ban on the proposed redevelopment of Carlton in Melbourne.

1975 Malcolm Fraser, then-leader of the Opposition stated that they'd be blocking supply in the Senate until an election was called as they had no faith in the Whitlam Govt due to messy money matters that had been sort of secret until they weren't.

2004 HMAS Arunta popped in for a cuppa tea at Vladivostok, Russia.

14 October stuff that happened on this day or when I can be bothered to look it up

1824 – W. C. Wentworth and Robert Wardell begin publication of The Australian, the first independent newspaper in Australia. 

1829 - The breaking of the 4 year drought in NSW. 

The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Thu 15 Oct 1829

1829 - Governor Darling proclaimed the Nineteen Counties of New South Wales which re-defined the Limits of Location, Location, Location beyond which settlement was prohibited.

1840 With the road from Adelaide to Port Adelaide completed the two Aussie Rules football teams could finally get down and dirty on the field. 

"A great procession of people, said to number 5000, travelled down the new road to Port Adelaide. Some 450 vehicles from four-in-hand barouches to bullock teams and donkey carts, as well as 500-600 equestrians made the journey. At the Port a regatta was held and 450 people sat down to a lavish lunch provided in the warehouses of the South Australian Company who had built the road. "

1879 – Author Miles Franklin born at Talbingo, New South Wales. 

1889 - The first electric tram in Oz was flung open for posteriors to be parked upon the bench seats as the people swayed to the rhythm from Doncaster to Box Hill

Opening day 

1923 – Severe floods in Melbourne, two drown. 

Fatalities in Melbourne

1927 - HMAS Adelaide arrived at the British Solomon Islands Protectorate as part of a British punitive expedition. The Royal Australian Navy operated as part of a British empire force in one of the first instances in which Australian forces intervened in regional affairs.

1935 – The Hornibrook Bridge opens, connecting Brisbane and Redcliffe, the 2.8 km bridge is one of the longest timber and girder bridges in Australia. 

1958 – Death of Douglas Mawson, Antarctic explorer and geologist, aged 76. 

1959 – Radio comedian and quiz show host Jack Davey dies. 

1959 – Death of Errol Flynn, flamboyant film actor, in Vancouver, British Columbia, aged 50. He shares coffin space with six bottles of whiskey, a parting gift from his drinking buddies. 

1968 – The town of Meckering, Western Australia, was badly damaged by an earthquake.

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!