1616    Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog makes second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at the later-named Dirk Hartog Island off the Western Australian coast.

1770    Captain James Cook sights the eastern coast of Australia.

1770    James Cook arrives at and names Botany Bay, Australia.

1770    James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

1770    James Cook's expedition lands on the east coast of Australia.

1787    Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with eleven ships full of convicts (the "First Fleet") to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1788    The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrives at Botany Bay.

1808    Rum Rebellion, the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australia.

1813    In Australia, William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland and William Wentworth lead an expedition westwards from Sydney. Their route opens up inland Australia for continued expansion throughout the 19th century.

1813    In Australia, Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth, reached Mount Blaxland, effectively marking the end of a route across the Blue Mountains.

1829    After anchoring nearby, Captain Charles Fremantle of the HMS ''Challenger'', declares the Swan River Colony in Australia.

1834    Six farm labourers from Tolpuddle, Dorset, England are sentenced to be transported to Australia for forming a trade union.

1835    Melbourne, Australia is founded.

1838    Myall Creek Massacre in Australia: 28 Aboriginal Australians are murdered.

1852    The University of Sydney, Australia's oldest university, is inaugurated in Sydney.

1854    Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.

1859    Australia: Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales (Queensland Day).

1861    The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.

1865    The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia.

1869    The Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act is enacted in Australia, giving the government control of indigenous people's wages, their terms of employment, where they could live, and of their children, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations.

1877    The Victorian Football League of Australia is founded.

1887    {{Convert|465|mm|in}} of rain falls in Brisbane, a record for any Australian capital city.

1892    The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.

1899    Leaders of six Australian colonies meet in Melbourne to discuss confederation.

1899    The Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia's capital city, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne.

1899    The Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia's capital city, Canberra, between Sydney and Melbourne.

1900    The Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook Narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in or 762 mm) Railway (now the Puffing Billy Railway) in Victoria, Australia is opened for traffic.

1901    The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia; Edmund Barton is appointed the first Prime Minister.

1901    Australia opens its first parliament in Melbourne.

1903    Hallam Tennyson, 2nd Baron Tennyson, son of the famous poet Alfred Tennyson, becomes the second Governor-General of Australia.

1909    Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's and form the Imperial Cricket Conference.

1913    Canberra Day: The future capital of Australia is officially named Canberra. (Melbourne remained temporary capital until 1927 while the new capital was still under construction.)

1914    Australia invades New Britain, defeating a German contingent at the Battle of Bita Paka.

1914    World War I: Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo, Egypt.

1915    World War I: Last Australian troops evacuated from Gallipoli.

1918    Culmination of the Darwin Rebellion as some 1000 demonstrators march on Government House in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

1923    The first of 160 consecutive days of 100 degrees at Marble Bar, Australia.

1930    Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).

1931    Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing on New Zealand's west coast.

1931    Sir Isaac Isaacs is sworn in as the first Australian-born Governor-General of Australia.

1934    The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia is opened.

1939    Sydney, Australia, swelters in 45 ˚C (113 ˚F) heat, a record for the city.

1939    The Black Friday bush fires burn 20,000 square kilometres of land in Australia, claiming the lives of 71 people.

1939    First flight of the Australian C.A.C. CA-16 Wirraway.

1939    World War II: France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia declare war on Germany after the invasion of Poland, forming the Allies.

1941    World War II: Battle between HMAS ''Sydney'' and HSK ''Kormoran''. The two ships sink each other off the coast of Western Australia, with the loss of 645 Australians and about 77 German seamen.

1942    World War II: The Fall of Singapore. Following an assault by Japanese forces, the British General Arthur Percival surrenders. About 80,000 Indian, United Kingdom and Australian soldiers become prisoners of war, the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history. The Sook Ching massacre begins.

1942    World War II: Australia declares war on Thailand.

1942    World War II: Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi Island in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo that results in the Battle of the Coral Sea between Japanese forces and forces from the United States and Australia.

1942    World War II: Imperial Japanese Navy midget submarines begin a series of attacks on Sydney, Australia.

1942    World War II: Japanese imperial submarines I-21 and I-24 shell the Australian cities of Sydney and Newcastle.

1942    The Australian Federal Government becomes the sole collector of Income Tax in Australia as the State Income Tax is abolished.

1942    Statute of Westminster 1931 formalises Australian autonomy.

1942    The Soviet Union establishes diplomatic relations with Australia.

1943    World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeat the Japanese army in Papua. This turning point in the Pacific War marks the beginning of the end of Japanese aggression.

1944    World War II: possibly the biggest prison breakout in history occurs as 545 Japanese POWs attempt to escape outside the town of Cowra, New South Wales, Australia.

1945    The official North Korean newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, is first published under the name ''Chongro''. Australia joins the United Nations.

1951    The United States, Australia and New Zealand sign a mutual defense pact, called the ANZUS Treaty.

1955    The Cocos Islands are transferred from the control of the United Kingdom to Australia.

1956    Television is first broadcast in Australia.

1959    The {{MS|Princess of Tasmania}}, Australia’s first passenger roll-on/roll-off diesel ferry, makes her maiden voyage across Bass Strait.

1962    The Paddington tram depot fire destroys 65 trams in Brisbane, Australia.

1964    Melbourne-Voyager collision: The aircraft carrier {{HMAS|Melbourne|R21|6}} collides with the destroyer {{HMAS|Voyager|D04|6}} off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia.

1966    Australian currency is decimalised.

1967    Ronald Ryan, the last person to be executed in Australia, is hanged in Pentridge Prison, Melbourne.

1967    Australians vote in favor of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census.

1968    Nauru gains independence from Australia.

1969    Melbourne-Evans collision: Off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier {{HMAS|Melbourne|R21|6}} cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer {{USS|Frank E. Evans|DD-754|6}} in half.

1969    An Australian, Michael Dennis Rohan, sets the Al-Aqsa Mosque on fire

1969    The United Kingdom introduces the British fifty-pence coin, which replaced, over the following years, the British ten-shilling note, in anticipation of the decimalization of the British currency in 1971, and the abolition of the shilling as a unit of currency anywhere in the world. (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, etc., had already abolished the shilling in favor of a decimal currency with exactly 100 pence per pound sterling or dollar, whichever was applicable.}

1970    The Hutt River Province Principality secedes from Australia.

1971    Vietnam War: Australia and New Zealand decide to withdraw their troops from Vietnam.

1972    Willandra National Park is established in Australia.

1972    Gough Whitlam becomes the first Labor Prime Minister of Australia for 23 years.

1974    Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Northern Territory Australia.

1975    The Tasman Bridge in Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier ''Lake Illawarra'', killing twelve people.

1975    As North Vietnamese forces close in on the South Vietnamese capital Saigon, the Australian Embassy is closed and evacuated, almost ten years to the day since the first Australian troop commitment to South Vietnam.

1975    Papua New Guinea gains its independence from Australia.

1975    The Balibo Five, a group of Australian television journalists based in the town of Balibo in the then Portuguese Timor (now East Timor), are killed by Indonesian troops.

1975    Australian constitutional crisis of 1975: Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismisses the government of Gough Whitlam, appoints Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister and announces a general election to be held in early December.

1977    Australia's worst rail disaster occurs at Granville, Sydney killing 83.

1978    Hilton bombing: a bomb explodes in a refuse truck outside the Hilton Hotel in Sydney, Australia, killing two refuse collectors and a policeman.

1978    Australia's Ken Warby sets the current world water speed record of 317.60mph at Blowering Dam, Australia.

1978    Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.

1979    The Ghost Train Fire at Luna Park Sydney (New South Wales, Australia) kills seven.

1983    The Melbourne dust storm hits Australia's second largest city. The result of the worst drought on record and a day of severe weather conditions, a {{convert|320|m|ft}} deep dust cloud envelops the city, turning day to night.

1986    The Gateway Bridge, Brisbane in Queensland, Australia is officially opened.

1988    Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II officially opens World Expo '88 in Brisbane, Australia.

1988    Two officers of the Victoria Police are gunned down executional style in the Walsh Street police shootings, Australia.

1989    1,645 Australian domestic airline pilots resign after the airlines threaten to fire them and sue them over a dispute.

1989    A magnitude 5.6 earthquake hits Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, killing 13 people.

1991    Elizabeth II, in her capacity as Queen of Australia, signs letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth Realm to institute its own separate Victoria Cross award in its own honours system.

1996    In Tasmania, Australia, Martin Bryant goes on a shooting spree, killing 35 people and seriously injuring 21 more.

1999    A severe hailstorm strikes Sydney, Australia causing A$2.3 billion in insured damages, the most costly natural disaster in Australian history.

1999    Australians vote to keep the Head of the Commonwealth as their head of state in the Australian republic referendum.

2003    The Waterfall rail accident occurs near Waterfall, New South Wales, Australia.

2004    2004 Australian embassy bombing: A bomb explodes outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, killing 10 people.

2005    Cronulla riots: Thousands of White Australians demonstrate against ethnic violence resulting in a riot against anyone thought to be Lebanese (and many who were not) in Cronulla Sydney. These are followed up by retaliatory ethnic attacks on Cronulla.

2007    In Melbourne, Australia, a fire in the Burnley Tunnel kills three.

2007    Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of trade ship, the {{MV|Pasha Bulker}}.

2007    The first Airbus A380 passenger flight, operating for Singapore Airlines, with flight number SQ 380, flying scheduled service between Singapore and Sydney, Australia.