Portal:Australia/Anniversaries/December

These are the selected anniversaries for December that appear on the Australia portal. The "edit" links edit the portal subpages that are displayed as sections here.

December 1

1811 – During a tour of Van Diemen's Land, Governor Macquarie gave directions for the layout of Hobart.
1820 – Campbelltown, New South Wales is established.
1838 – The first annual Royal Hobart Regatta is held.
1876 – SS Georgette runs aground near Busselton, Western Australia; Grace Bussell and Sam Isaacs help to rescue the passengers.
1942 – The corvette HMAS Armidale is attacked and sunk by Japanese aircraft off Timor.
1973 – Australia grants self-government to Papua New Guinea.
1976 – Douglas Nicholls is appointed the 28th Governor of South Australia becoming the first indigenous Governor of an Australian state.
1982 – The Commonwealth introduced the Freedom of Information Act.
1984 – The Bob Hawke-led Australian Labor Party is returned to power at federal election.
1987 – Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen resigns as Premier of Queensland after 19 years in power. He is replaced by Mike Ahern.

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December 2

1876 – SS Georgette runs aground near Busselton, Western Australia; Grace Bussell and Sam Isaacs help to rescue the passengers.
1811 – Reverend Samuel Marsden sends the first large export of wool from Australia to Britain.
1823 – John Oxley become the first European to navigate the Brisbane River.
1916 – Twelve members of the Industrial Workers of the World are convicted in Sydney of conspiring to commit arson and sedition.
1972 – Gough Whitlam becomes Prime Minister, leading the first Labor government in 23 years.
1984 – The Hawke Government is re-elected with a reduced majority.
1986 – Justice Mary Gaudron is the first woman appointed to the High Court of Australia.
1994 – Australian government agrees to pay reparations to aborigines that were displaced during the nuclear tests in 1950s and 1960s.
1998 – The Linton bushfire claims the lives of five volunteer firefighters from Geelong.

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December 3

1797 – George Bass sets out from Sydney in a whaleboat with six oarsmen to explore south along the coast.
1825 – Van Diemen's Land becomes independent from New South Wales, the Legislative Council of Tasmania is established and George Arthur becomes Governor.
1854 – The Eureka Stockade takes place.
1999 – The Glenbrook train disaster occurs on the CityRail network in New South Wales. Seven people are killed.

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December 4

1851 – Charles La Trobe forwards a Victorian Legislative Council motion opposing further transportation; it is passed unanimously.
1960 – Athlete Glynis Nunn is born in Toowoomba, Queensland.
1976 – The Royal Australian Navy's fleet of Grumman Tracker aircraft is destroyed by arson at Nowra, New South Wales.
1995 – A gas explosion at Kogarah railway station, Sydney kills two people.

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December 5

Opera House construction in 1968

1924 – The first Woolworths Supermarket opens in the Imperial Arcade in Sydney.
1941 – Clive Caldwell, Australian fighter ace, shot down five Junkers Ju-87 (Stuka) dive bombers in matter of minutes.
1958 – Construction of Stage I of the Sydney Opera House begins.
1972 – Prime Minister Gough Whitlam establishes his first cabinet, consisting of himself and Lance Barnard.
1989 – Trevor Kaine becomes Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory.

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December 6

1882 – A rare Transit of Venus across the disc of the Sun is visible from Australia, and many scientific parties arrive from around the world to observe and record the event.
1956 – Blood in the Water water polo match between Hungary and the USSR at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
1979 – Tim Cahill, midfield football (soccer) player for the Australia national team and Everton F.C. is born in Sydney.
2002 – The Australian Government announces a hand gun buy-back following the Monash University shooting.

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December 7

1813 – The Macquarie River is discovered by George Evans.
1838 – Thomas Bent, one of Australia's more colourful politicians, and Premier of Victoria, is born in Penrith, New South Wales.
1915 – The evacuation of ANZAC forces from Gallipoli begins, some argue that the evacuation was the greatest Allied success of the campaign.
1963 – Cricket umpire Colin Egar no-balls Ian Meckiff four times in Meckiff's first over for throwing and effectively ends Meckiff's Test career.
1985 – The Labor government of John Bannon is re-elected for a second term in South Australia.

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December 8

1892 – Pioneer aviator Bert Hinkler is born in Bundaberg, Queensland.
1910 – Geelong, Victoria is declared a city.
1934 – Imperial Airways extends its airmail service to Australia.
1987 – Frank Vitkovic kills eight and injures another five before falling to his death in the Queen Street massacre in Melbourne.
1988 – In Mabo v Queensland (1988) the High Court of Australia finds that the Queensland Coast Islands Declaratory Act, which attempted to retrospectively abolish native title rights, was not valid.

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December 9

The Gabba

1906 – Pastor "Doug" Nicholls, of the Yorta Yorta people, and Governor of South Australia, is born.
1960 – The cricket match which is to become known as the Tied Test commences at the Brisbane Cricket Ground.
1961 – Robert Menzies-led Coalition returned to power at federal election.
1983 – The Australian dollar is floated.
2017 – Same-sex couples are now allowed to marry in Australia.

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December 10

1792 – Governor of New South Wales Captain Arthur Phillip is granted leave and permitted to return to England.
1817 – Bushranger Michael Howe is caught, but escapes after killing his captors.
1895 – Launceston, Tasmania becomes first city in Australia to have streets lit by electricity.
1915 – Father and son scientists William Henry Bragg and Lawrence Bragg win the Nobel Prize in Physics, and are the first Australians awarded the prize.
1919 – Ross and Keith Macpherson Smith complete the first flight from Britain to Australia.
1923 – Sculptor Daphne Mayo became the first woman to receive a medal for sculpture from the Royal Academy.
1934 – Qantas makes its first international flight from Darwin to Singapore.
2002 – The High Court of Australia hands down judgment in the Internet defamation case, Gutnick v Dow Jones.

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December 11

1823 – Richmond Bridge was opened, it is the oldest bridge in Australia still in use.
1958 – The ICI House opens in Melbourne, the tallest building in Australia at the time.
1990 – John Fairfax Holdings is placed into receivership.
1990 – Christine Woolgar and Noel Hayman graduated from the University of Queensland, to become the state's first Aboriginal doctors.
1993 – Dean Brown and the Liberal Party win the South Australian elections, winning government from Lynn Arnold and the ALP.
2005 – The Cronulla riots take place.

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December 12

Banner from 1860 and 1861 anti-Chinese rebellion on the Lambing Flat goldfields

1815 – Captain James Kelly sets out on circumnavigation of Tasmania, during which important observations are made on the resources of the west coast.
1860 – Initial riots on the Lambing Flat goldfields near present day Young, New South Wales.
1906 – Australian federal election, 1906: The government of Prime Minister Alfred Deakin is returned to power, however voter turn-out is low.
1981 – A referendum is held in Tasmania to vote for whether or not the Franklin Dam should be built. 47% vote for the original proposal, 8% vote for the compromise solution and 45% voted informally. It is estimated that up to one-third of all votes were for "no dams", which was not a sanctioned option.

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December 13

1947 – Indian bowler Vinoo Mankad runs out Bill Brown when in the act of delivering the ball. After this incident, if a batsman is given out this way, he is said to have been Mankaded.
1962 – The last telegram transmitted within New South Wales using morse code was sent from Sydney to Bombala.
2005 – Bradley John Murdoch is convicted of murdering Peter Falconio in the Australian outback whilst travelling with girlfriend Joanne Lees.
2005 – Melbourne's Spencer Street Station is officially renamed Southern Cross Station.

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December 14

1918 – The first Victorian Farmers Union member is elected to parliament as a result of the introduction of preferential voting.
1982 – The Tasmanian Wilderness Society, led by Bob Brown, stages a blockade of the Franklin Dam site in Tasmania which continues into 1983.
1993 – The Australian Football League announces that the Fremantle Football Club will enter the league in 1995.
1996 – The Liberal/National coalition government of Richard Court is reelected in Western Australia.

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December 15

1838 – John King, the sole survivor of the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, is born at Moy in the county of Tyrone, Ireland.
1900 – Upon his arrival in Australia, the first Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun, commits the so-called Hopetoun Blunder.
1905 – Women in Queensland are given the right to vote in state elections.
2003 – The Fourth Martin Ministry is formed in the Northern Territory following a major ministerial reshuffle.

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December 16

1824 – Explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell arrive in the area the Aborigines call Corayo on a bay called Jillong.
1929 – Rothbury Riot in which police shoot at locked out miners, killing Norman Brown.
1936 – A Brisbane to Adelaide air race is held to commemorate South Australia's centenary.
1947 – The reconstructed Regent Theatre, Melbourne opens after it was destroyed by fire in 1945.
1948 – HMAS Sydney, the first aircraft carrier of the Royal Australian Navy, is commissioned.

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December 17

1794 – Acting Governor of New South Wales Francis Grose leaves New South Wales for England.
1927 – Batsman Bill Ponsford scores 437 for Victoria against Queensland at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
1967 – Prime Minister Harold Holt goes swimming at Cheviot Beach on Point Nepean, Victoria and is never seen again.
1980 – Two gunmen kill Turkish Consul-General Mehmet Baydar in Sydney, the killers were never apprehended.

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December 18

1894 – South Australia is the first colony to give women equal franchise with men.
1902 – The mayors of Sydney and Melbourne are conferred the title of Lord Mayor.
1903 – The first train runs from Rockhampton to Brisbane.
1952 – Entertainer Frankie J. Holden is born.

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December 19

1930 – For the first time Perth is linked by telephone to the rest of Australia.
1949 – Robert Menzies becomes Prime Minister of Australia for a second time, serving until 1966.
1955 – Dame Edna Everage, played by Barry Humphries, makes her stage debut.
1967 – John McEwen becomes the eighteenth Prime Minister of Australia following the disappearance of Harold Holt.
1991 – Paul Keating makes his second Labor leadership challenge. This time, he wins 56–51 and becomes Australia's 24th Prime Minister the next day.

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December 20

1915 – Completion of ANZAC evacuation from Gallipoli before dawn.
1917 – The second plebiscite on the issue of military conscription was held; it was defeated.
1928 – Hubert Wilkins makes the first flight over Antarctica in his Lockheed Vega San Francisco.
1961 – Earle Page, the eleventh Prime Minister of Australia dies.
1991 – Paul Keating becomes the twenty-fourth Prime Minister of Australia.

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December 21

1817 – Lachlan Macquarie recommends the adoption of the name Australia for the continent instead of New Holland.
1889 – The poem "Clancy of the Overflow", by Banjo Paterson, is first published in The Bulletin magazine.
1921 – The Gun Alley Murder: 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke is raped and murdered in Gun Alley, Melbourne. 28-year-old Colin Ross was hanged for the crime, but in 1992 was proved innocent (unsolved).
1938 – A direct radio-telephone link is established between Canberra and Washington, D.C..
1977 – World Series Cricket is launched by Kerry Packer.

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December 22

Engraving made from a sketch of Oyster Harbour by Philip Parker King in 1818

1817 – The King expedition of 1817, to explore and make a rough survey of the northern and north-west coasts of Australia, departs Sydney.
1911 – The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is established.
1919 – Susan Grace Benny becomes the first Australian woman elected to a local government.
1989 – Two tourist coaches collide on the Pacific Highway north of Kempsey, New South Wales, 35 killed and 39 injured.

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December 23

1901 – The Immigration Restriction Act 1901 comes into force, instituting the White Australia Policy.
1916 – In the Sinai desert, Australian and New Zealand mounted troops capture the Turkish garrison during the Battle of Magdhaba.
1929 – The 1929 Timber Workers strike results from a decision of Judge Lukin of the Arbitration Court to reduce the wages and increase the hours for 20,000 timber workers from a 44 hour week to 48 hour week.
1983 – Australia records its first death from the HIV/AIDS virus.

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December 24

1822 – Reverend Archibald Macarthur, the first Presbyterian minister in Australia, arrives in Hobart.
1971 – Cyclone Althea hits Townsville and surrounding islands, killing three.
1972 – The official highest maximum temperature in Queensland, of 49.5°C (121.1°F), is recorded at Birdsville.
1974 – Cyclone Tracy devastates the city of Darwin. The official death toll was 71.

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December 25

1826 – Major Edmund Lockyer arrive at King George Sound to take possession of the western part of the continent, establishing a settlement near Albany.
1872 – Cosmetics industrialist Helena Rubinstein is born in Krakau, Austria-Hungary (now Poland).
1891 – Clarrie Grimmett, Australian cricketer, and one of the finest early spin bowlers, was born in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.
1975 – Fifteen people are killed in an arson attack at the Savoy Hotel in Kings Cross, New South Wales.

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December 26

1898 – Gatton murders: Three members of the same family are sexually molested and murdered near the town of Gatton, Queensland (unsolved).
1902 – Brisbane is declared a city.
1902 – Ada Evans becomes the first female law graduate in Australia.
1906 – The world's first feature-length film The Story of the Kelly Gang premieres in Melbourne.
1945 – The first Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is held.
1947 – Heard Island and McDonald Islands become administered by Australia.
1998 – Astronaut Andy Thomas becomes the first Australian to walk in space.
2005 – Death of Kerry Packer, Australia's richest man and the major shareholder in PBL.

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December 27

1803 – Convict William Buckley escapes from Sullivan Bay, Victoria. He lives with the Wautharong Aboriginal people for 32 years.
1943 – Australian forces capture Shaggy Ridge, New Guinea after a four-month battle against the Japanese.
1974 – The Perth Entertainment Centre opens. It has a capacity of 8200 seats.
2002 – The first X'Trapolis train enters service with Connex in Melbourne.

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December 28

1836 – South Australia and Adelaide are founded.
1847 – Augustus Short, the first Anglican bishop of Adelaide, South Australia arrives from England.
1916 – Floods in Clermont, Queensland claim more than 60 lives.
1932 – Test wicket-keeper Jack Blackham dies.
1938 – The Sydney Mail ceases publication.
1989 – Newcastle is the epicentre of Australia's only significant earthquake, 13 die and 160 are injured.

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December 29

1696 – Flemish captain Willem de Vlamingh arrives at, and names Rottnest Island
1835 – Mary Gilbert gives birth to her son, James Port Phillip Gilbert, the first European child born in the Port Phillip settlement of Melbourne.
1890 – Sir John Forrest becomes the Premier of Western Australia and the first Premier in Australia
1928 – The Jazz Singer becomes the first sound film screened in Australia. It premieres at the Lyceum Theatre in Sydney.
1960 – Cricketer David Boon is born in Launceston, Tasmania.
1994 – Cricketer Shane Warne takes a Test match hat-trick against England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

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December 30

1938 – Daisy Bates book The Passing of the Aborigines is first published.
1951 – The Australian Davis Cup Team defeats the United States and retains the trophy.
1957 – Australian rules footballer for the Essendon Bombers, Simon Madden, is born.
1971 – Scott Chipperfield, football (soccer) midfielder, who currently plays for FC Basel, is born in Sydney.

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December 31

1855 – Governor of Victoria Charles Hotham dies aged 48.
1935 – The cane toad is introduced into Queensland to control the cane beetle.
1964 – Donald Campbell sets a new land speed record at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia of 276.33 mph (442 km/h).
2005 – Sections of the Trans-Australian Railway near Nurina on the Nullarbor Plain were washed away by flooding, halting passenger and freight services for up to five days.

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