Portal:Australia/Anniversaries/February

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

February 1

John Oxley

• 1811 – John Oxley is appointed Surveyor-General of New South Wales.
• 1977 – The Federal Court of Australia opens.
• 1981 – Cricketer Trevor Chappell bowls an underarm ball against New Zealand causing outrage with officials and fans.
• 1984 – Medicare comes into effect.
• 2004 – The first Ghan passenger train across Australia from Adelaide to Darwin sets off on its three-day journey.

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February 2

• 1803 – Charles Grimes, Surveyor general, discovered the Yarra River.
• 1808 – William Paterson sails to Sydney from Port Dalrymple to take over the administration of New South Wales following the removal of Bligh.
• 1880 – The first successful shipment of frozen mutton from Australia arrived in London aboard the SS Strathleven.
• 1882 – A cyclone causes considerable damage to the town of Cardwell, Queensland.
• 1982 – Lindy Chamberlain committed to trial for murdering her baby Azaria.
• 1986 – Sydney nurse Anita Cobby is brutally murdered leading to calls for the re-introduction of the death penalty.
• 1998 – A Constitutional Convention begins to decide which model of republic should be put before the people of Australia in a referendum.

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February 3

Arrival of the first Ghan into Darwin

• 1821 – Sir Thomas Brisbane is commissioned as Governor to succeed Macquarie, he replaces Maquarie on 1 December of the same year.
• 1954 – Queen Elizabeth arrives in Australia with Prince Philip on a royal tour.
• 1967 – Ronald Ryan is hanged at Melbourne's Pentridge Gaol, becoming the last person to be legally executed in Australia.
• 1983 – Bob Hawke becomes leader of the Australian Labor Party.
• 2004 – The Ghan arrives in Darwin, completing the first passenger rail journey from Adelaide to Darwin.

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February 4

• 1796 – Soldiers from the New South Wales Corps wreck a house belonging to settler John Baughan.
• 1813 – Major Thomas Davey succeeds David Collins as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land.
• 1942 – In the Battle of Rabaul, 158 Australian POWs are massacred in the Tol Plantation massacre.
• 1964 – Cyclone Dora strikes north west Queensland.
• 2003 – Stephen John Sutton is arrested by the Argentine Police and held without charge for two and a half years before being sentenced in 2005 to eleven years jail for drug trafficking.

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February 5

Miners and their wives posing with the finders of the Welcome Stranger Nugget

• 1869 – A gold nugget named Welcome Stranger is discovered at Moliagul, Victoria, the largest alluvial gold find.
• 1932 – Nine people die in bushfires in Gippsland, Victoria.
• 1938 – The British Empire Games begin in Sydney.
• 1985 – Australia cancels its involvement in US-led MX missile tests.

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February 6

Bondi Beach

• 1788 – The first female convicts arrive at Port Jackson.
• 1794 – John Hunter is appointed the second Governor of New South Wales.
• 1851 – "Black Thursday" as bushfires rage from Mount Gambier to Melbourne.
• 1906 – The Bondi Beach surf lifesaving club is established, becoming the first club of its type in the world.
• 1938 – Black Sunday at Bondi Beach, Sydney. Three hundred swimmers dragged out to sea in three freak waves. Eighty lifesavers save all but five.
• 1984 – A bomb blast wrecks the home of High Court judge Richard Gee in the Sydney suburb of Belrose.
• 1987 – Anthony Mason is appointed as the ninth Chief Justice of Australia.
• 1991 – Roma Mitchell is appointed Governor of South Australia, she was the first female Governor of an Australian state.
• 1993 – In the Western Australia election the ALP government of Carmen Lawrence is defeated and the Liberal Party's Richard Court becomes the new premier.

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February 7

• 1788 – The Colony of New South Wales is officially created with Arthur Phillip as the first Governor.
• 1967 – Bushfires in Tasmania, destroy over 1,000 homes and take 62 lives.
• 1969 – Nine people were killed in the Violet Town railway disaster.
• 1986 – Lindy Chamberlain is released from prison after serving three years upon the find of new evidence which eventually leads a judge to overturn her conviction.
• 2009 – Bushfires in Victoria left over 100 dead in the deadliest bushfires in Australia's history.

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February 8

George Coulthard, whose umpiring decision to give out Billy Murdoch led to the riot.

• 1807 – Thomas Laycock discovers the Clyde River in Van Diemen's Land.
• 1879 – A controversial umpiring decision at an international cricket match results in the Sydney Riot of 1879.
• 1950 – Petrol rationing ends following World War II.
• 1983 – A huge dust storm originating in the Mallee area of Victoria covers Melbourne.
• 2004 – Peter Beattie leads the Australian Labor Party to a landslide victory in the Queensland state election.

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February 9

• 1889 – Peter Lalor, the leader of the Eureka Stockade rebellion, dies aged 62.
• 1914 – Sir Ronald Munro-Ferguson, a landholder and provost of Kirkcaldy, appointed as the new Governor-General of Australia.
• 1923 – Stanley Bruce becomes Prime Minister of Australia.
• 1937 – Cairns is hit by a tropical cyclone.
• 1986 – Women were ordained as priests in the Anglican Church of Australia for the first time.
• 2002 – The Australian Labor Party, led by Mike Rann, wins the South Australian state election.

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February 10

Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne (foreground) and the aircraft carrier USS Midway

• 1852 – the Supreme Court of Victoria sits for the first time in Melbourne.
• 1954 – Queen Elizabeth II plants a tree at the Australian War Memorial to mark the beginning of the Remembrance Driveway between Canberra and Sydney.
• 1964 – HMAS Voyager collides with HMAS Melbourne and sinks south-east of Jervis Bay, killing 82.
• 1973 – Australia's first legal casino, the Wrest Point Casino, opens in Hobart, Tasmania.
• 1981 – Townsville International Airport opens in Queensland.

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February 11

• 1851 – Tasmania plays Victoria in the first intercolonial cricket match.
• 1986 – Joan Child became the first woman to hold the post of Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives.
• 2005 – Maria Korp is found comatose in the boot of her car in Melbourne, her life support is later switched off leading to some debate over euthanasia.

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February 12

• 1793 – John Macarthur receives 100 acres at Parramatta, he establishes Elizabeth Farm.
• 1798 – Matthew Flinders explores the Furneaux Islands in Bass Strait.
• 1851 – Edward Hargraves finds gold near Bathurst, starting the first of many Australian gold rushes.
• 1981 – Harry Gibbs is appointed as the eighth Chief Justice of Australia.
• 1990 – Carmen Lawrence becomes Premier of Western Australia and Australia's first female premier, after the resignation of Peter Dowding.

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February 13

Mawson Station from the air.

• 1896 – The Brisbane River ferry Pearl capsizes, killing 28.
• 1907 – The Northern Territory is transferred to the Commonwealth by South Australia.
• 1938 – Sydney ferry the Rodney with 150 passengers capsizes in Sydney Harbour while farwelling US Navy cruiser USS Louisville, killing 19.
• 1954 – Mawson Station in the Australian Antarctic Territory is established.
• 1978 – The Sydney Hilton bombing occurs during a meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government.

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February 14

The Lady Nelson

• 1792 – The colony's first shop opens at Sydney Cove.
• 1802 – Acting lieutenant John Murray, commander of the Lady Nelson, explores Port Phillip.
• 1916 – Troops mutinied against conditions at the Casula Camp; one soldier was shot dead in a riot at Central Railway station.
• 1966 – Australian currency was decimalised, introducing the Australian dollar.
• 1975 – The Order of Australia was established to recognise individuals for their public service.
• 1981 – Australia withdraws recognition of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.
• 2004 – The 2004 Redfern riots start in the inner-Sydney suburb Redfern.

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February 15

• 1804 – Lieutenant-Governor David Collins established camp at Sullivan's Cove, Tasmania.
• 1823 – Surveyor James McBrien at the Fish River near Bathurst discovers gold. It is the first known report of gold, though it is not made public, the Australian gold rushes do not begin until 1851.
• 1934 – Entertainer and Gold Logie winner, Graham Kennedy is born.
• 1937 – An explosion kills 13 men at the State Coal Mine in Wonthaggi, Victoria.
• 1942 – Fifteen thousand Australians are taken as prisoners of war at the fall of Singapore.

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February 16

• 1804 – David Collins becomes the first Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land and decides on Sullivan Cove, now Hobart, as a settlement site.
• 1914 – Charles Heydon of the New South Wales Industrial Court finds that a "living wage" for a family of four would be 48 shillings a week but more than a living wage should be paid.
• 1942 – Twenty two Australians captured by the Japanese following the sinking of SS Vyner Brooke are killed at the Banka Island massacre.
• 1983 – The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claim the lives of 71 people in Australia's worst ever fires.
• 2002 – Steven Bradbury wins Australia's first Winter Olympics gold medal in the 1,000 meters short-track speed-skating event.

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February 17

Lord Howe Island showing Mts Lidgbird and Gower.

• 1788 – Lord Howe Island was discovered by HMS Supply.
• 1882 – The first cricket Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground begins.
• 2002 – Allegations are aired that Governor-General of Australia Peter Hollingworth, as Archbishop of Brisbane, had in the early 1990s attempted to cover up several instances of sexual abuse.
• 2003 – Hundreds of thousands of protestors join millions more in other cities around the world in protesting the Iraq War. These are the biggest street protests seen since the Vietnam War.

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February 18

Cradle Mountain

• 1793 – The first school in the colony opens in an unfinished church building in Sydney.
• 1946 – The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr. Norman Thomas Gilroy, becomes Cardinal Gilroy, the first Australian-born member of the College of Cardinals.
• 1958 – Two hundred thousand people assemble to meet the Queen Mother in Brisbane.
• 2001 – Four people are killed when a landslide forces a bus into a ravine at Cradle Mountain.
• 2006 – Six teenagers are killed and another is injured in a hit and run accident in Cardross, near Mildura.

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February 19

• 1942 – Japanese bombers bomb Darwin during the Pacific War, killing at least 243 people.
• 1943 – Parliament approves the Defence (Citizen Military Forces) Act (1943) introducing conscription for service in the south west Pacific war zone.
• 1955 – The Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty (SEATO) comes into force.
• 1996 – Rob Borbidge becomes Premier of Queensland.
• 1998 – Zali Steggall became the first Australian to win an individual medal at the Winter Olympics, taking bronze in the downhill slalom.

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February 20

King O'Malley

• 1913 – King O'Malley drove in the first survey peg to mark the commencement of work on the construction of Canberra.
• 1961 – Pianist and composer Percy Grainger dies aged 78.
• 1962 – Perth becomes known as the City of Light when astronaut John Glenn passes over the city and thousands of external lights are switched on to greet him.
• 2006 – Andrew Mallard, convicted of murder in 1995, has his conviction quashed and is released after a High Court appeal.

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February 21

• 1925 – Ronald Ryan, the last man to be legally executed in Australia, is born.
• 1980 – A Beech 200 light aircraft crashes at Sydney Airport, killing 13.
• 1997 – Former Premier of Western Australia Carmen Lawrence is charged with perjury resulting from the Marks Royal Commission. She was found not guilty.
• 1998 – Elections in the ACT re-elect the Liberal Party government of Kate Carnell.

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February 22

• 1791 – The first land grant in Australia is made to ex-convict James Ruse, he established Experiment Farm.
• 1928 – Bert Hinkler arrived in Darwin, having flown the first solo flight between England and Australia. He left England on 7 February.
• 1962 – Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, is born.

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February 23

Gladstone Power Station

• 1980 – The Liberal/National coalition government of Sir Charles Court is re-elected in Western Australia.
• 1987 – First mobile phone call made in Australia.
• 1998 – After generator breakdowns at four major coal-fired power stations, rolling blackouts hit the city of Brisbane and much of south-east Queensland.
• 2004 – Tasmanian Premier Jim Bacon resigns after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, handing power to his deputy, Paul Lennon.

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February 24

H. C. Coombs

• 1875 – The SS Gothenburg strikes Old Reef off Ayr, Queensland and sinks with the loss of 102 lives.
• 1906 – Economist and public servant Nugget Coombs is born near Perth.
• 1995 – Cyclone Bobby hits Western Australia near Onslow causing over 400 mm (15 inches) of rain in the town.
• 1996 – The Liberal Party government of Ray Groom is re-elected in Tasmania. Tony Rundle becomes the new Premier on 18 March.
• 2003 – Bandali Debs and Jason Roberts are found guilty of the Silk–Miller police murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.

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February 25

• 1825 – Aboriginal bushranger Musquito is hanged at Hobart, Tasmania.
• 1961 – Last electric tram service runs in Sydney.
• 2001 – Cricketer Don Bradman dies in Adelaide aged 92.
• 2004 – Qantas lanuches its low cost domestic airline Jetstar.
• 2005 – Parts of the Sydney suburb of Macquarie Fields erupt into rioting following the death of a 19-year-old in a police car chase.

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February 26

• 1942 – A floatplane from Japanese submarine I-25 makes a reconnaissance flight over Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay.
• 1945 – Motor racing driver Peter Brock is born in Hurstbridge.
• 1949 – Simon Crean, former leader of the Australian Labor Party, is born in Melbourne, Victoria.
• 1974 – Remains of Mungo Man discovered at Lake Mungo, New South Wales.
• 2005 – The ALP government of Geoff Gallop is re-elected in Western Australia for a second term.

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February 27

• 1788 – A seventeen-year-old convict, Thomas Barrett, receives the first death sentence in the colony.
• 1902 – Drover, poet and soldier Harry "Breaker" Harbord Morant is executed by firing squad at Pietersburg.
• 1994 – Australian Federal Sports and Environment Minister Ros Kelly resigns over "The Sports Rorts Affair", where it was alleged that she apportioned money for community sporting projects in a pork barreling fashion.

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February 28

Australian Anti-Transportation League Flag

• 1790 – John Irving, is the first convict emancipated in New South Wales.
• 1851 – formation of an Anti-Transportation League from anti-transportation organisations in Victoria and Tasmania.
• 1890 – The steamship RMS Quetta sinks off Cape York Peninsula, killing 133.
• 1973 – The federal voting age is lowered from 21 to 18.
• 2004 – Central City Studios, a five-studio film production complex, opens in the Melbourne Docklands.

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February 29

Australian Anti-Transportation League Flag

• 1790 – John Irving, is the first convict emancipated in New South Wales.
• 1851 – formation of an Anti-Transportation League from anti-transportation organisations in Victoria and Tasmania.
• 1890 – The steamship RMS Quetta sinks off Cape York Peninsula, killing 133.
• 1973 – The federal voting age is lowered from 21 to 18.
• 2004 – Central City Studios, a five-studio film production complex, opens in the Melbourne Docklands.

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