Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware this website contains images, voices and names of people who have died.

Discover the events, people and ideas that have shaped and defined Australia.

Australia’s Defining Moments Digital Classroom

Bring history to life with the National Museum of Australia.

Australia’s Defining Moments Digital Classroom

Bring history to life with the National Museum of Australia.

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At least 65,000 years ago: Evidence of first peoples

About 20,000 years ago: Earliest evidence of the boomerang

About 12,000 years ago: Separation of Tasmania

About 5000 years ago: Arrival of the dingo

1700

1700: Trade with the Makasar

1770: Cook claims Australia

1788: The First Fleet arrives at Sydney Cove

1791: Start of whaling

1792: Pemulwuy resists the colonists

1797: Merino sheep introduced

1800

1801–03: Flinders circumnavigates Australia

1804: Castle Hill Rebellion

1813: Europeans cross the Blue Mountains

1815: Founding of Bathurst

1824: First free press

1830: The ‘Black Line’

1832: Assisted migration introduced

1833: Convict transportation peaks

1838: Myall Creek massacre

1848: New South Wales funds Native Police

1851: Black Thursday bushfires

1852: Gundagai floods

1854: First steam railway

1854: Eureka Stockade

1856: Secret ballot introduced

1858: First game of Australian Rules football

1859: Rabbits introduced

1860: Burke and Wills cross the continent

1861: Introduction of Robertson Land Acts

1863: Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve established

1863: First indentured Islander labourers

1868: Convict transportation ends

1868: Aboriginal cricket team tours England

1871: Australian Natives’ Association formed

1872: Overland Telegraph completed

1872: Free education introduced

1879: Australia’s first national park

1880: The Bulletin established

1887: Murray River irrigation begins

1888–89: Japanese pearl divers in Broome

1889: Parkes delivers the Tenterfield Oration

1894: Women granted the vote in South Australia

1895–1903: Federation Drought

1899: Cyclone Mahina

1900

1901: Federation of the Australian colonies

1901: White Australia policy established

1902: Women granted the vote in federal elections

1903: ‘Federation’ wheat distributed

1907: First lifesaving club

1907: ‘Harvester Judgement’ establishes a living wage

1915: Aborigines Protection Act

1916: First Anzac Day

1916–17: Conscription referendums

1919: Spanish flu pandemic reaches Australia

1920: Qantas established

1921: First woman elected to an Australian parliament

1926: Moth introduced to eradicate prickly pear

1928: Charles Kingsford Smith flies across the Pacific

1928: Bradman’s first century

1930: Phar Lap wins the Melbourne Cup

1932: Height of the Great Depression

1935: Cane toads introduced

1936: Yorta Yorta elder William Cooper protests

1936: Extinction of thylacine

1938: First Aboriginal Day of Mourning

1940: HMT Dunera arrives in Australia

1942: Fall of Singapore

1942: Curtin brings home troops

1942: Darwin bombed and Kokoda Trail

1943: Conscription introduced

1943: First women elected to Australian Parliament

1945: Founding of the United Nations

1945: Nobel Prize awarded for developing penicillin

1947: First peacetime signals intelligence organisation

1949: Australian citizenship established

1949: Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme begins

1954: Australian flag defined

1954: Rum Jungle uranium mine opens

1958: First modern skyscraper

1962: Indigenous Australians granted the right to vote

1964: Government aid to non-government schools introduced

1966: Wave Hill Walk-Off

1967: Indigenous referendum

1968: Mungo Lady found

1968: Dung beetles introduced

1971: First green bans

1971: First Nations peoples counted in Census

1972: Aboriginal Tent Embassy established

1972: Equal pay for women

1974: Cyclone Tracy hits Darwin

1975: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park created

1975: Whitlam dismissal

1976: Aboriginal Land Rights Act

1976: First arrival of Vietnamese refugees by boat

1978: First gay Mardi Gras

1982: Franklin Dam protests

1984: Sex Discrimination Act

1985: Handback of Uluru to the Anangu people

1991: Port Hedland detention centre opens

1992: Mabo decision

1993: Australian dogs leave Antarctica

2000

2000: Walk for reconciliation

2000: Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympics

2001: ‘Tampa affair’

2008: National apology to the Stolen Generations

2009: Black Saturday bushfires

2009: National apology to ‘Forgotten Australians’ and former child migrants

2010: First female prime minister and governor-general

2012: Murray-Darling Basin Plan introduced

2017: Campaign to abolish nuclear weapons wins Nobel Prize

2017: Marriage equality achieved

2019: Australian Football League apologises to Adam Goodes

2019: Budj Bim Cultural Landscape given World Heritage status

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Illustration year source image

Animation: Ned Kelly, National Museum of Australia; Extract from Native Animals of Australia, 1938, National Film and Sound Archive; Dutch migrants, 1954, National Archives of Australia A12111, 1/1954/53; Truganini, National Library of Australia obj-136686870; Phar Lap, State Library of Victoria H91.160/287; Quentin Bryce, 2013, Stephen Corey / ACT Government; Nippers, Sun Herald; Swearing Allegiance to the Southern Cross, 1854, by Charles A Doudiet, Art Gallery of Ballarat; Nicky Winmar, 1993, Wayne Ludbey / Age; Extract from Cavalcade of Australia: 1901–1951, 1951, National Film and Sound Archive

Background images: Sydney Olympics, 2000, Adam Pretty/Getty Images; Footprints at Willandra Lakes, Michael Amendolia; View of the Heads at the Entrance to Port Jackson, 1824, by Joseph Lycett, National Library of Australia obj-135701554; Zealous gold diggers, Castlemaine 1852, by ST Gill, State Library of Victoria H141536; Ned Kelly, National Museum of Australia; Anzac Beach, 1915, Australian War Memorial H03574; Thylacine, 1936, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery; Dutch migrants, 1954, National Archives of Australia A12111, 1/1954/53; Vincent Lingiari and Gough Whitlam, 1975, Mervyn Bishop; Huge crowd on Sydney Harbour Bridge during the Walk for Reconciliation, Corroboree 2000, Loui Seselja, National Library of Australia nla.obj-145680129