Incumbents

• Monarch
  Monarchy in Australia
  The Monarchy of Australia is a form of government in which a hereditary monarch is the sovereign of Australia. The monarchy is a constitutional one modelled on the Westminster style of parliamentary government, incorporating features unique to the Constitution of Australia.The present monarch is...
  
   – Elizabeth II
• Governor-General
  Governor-General of Australia
  The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...
  
   – Sir William Slim
  William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim
  Field Marshal William Joseph "Bill"'Slim, 1st Viscount Slim, KG, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, GBE, DSO, MC, KStJ was a British military commander and the 13th Governor-General of Australia....
  
  
• Prime Minister
  Prime Minister of Australia
  The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the highest minister of the Crown, leader of the Cabinet and Head of Her Majesty's Australian Government, holding office on commission from the Governor-General of Australia. The office of Prime Minister is, in practice, the most powerful...
  
   – Robert Menzies
  Robert Menzies
  Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
  
  

State Premiers

• Premier of New South Wales – Joseph Cahill
  Joseph Cahill
  John Joseph Cahill was Premier of New South Wales in Australia from 1952 to 1959. He is best remembered as the Premier who approved construction on the Sydney Opera House, and for his work increasing the authority of local government in the state.-Early years:Joe Cahill, as he was popularly known,...
  
  
• Premier of Queensland – Vince Gair
  Vince Gair
  Vincent Clare "Vince" Gair was an Australian politician. He served as Premier of Queensland from 1952 until 1957, when his stormy relations with the trade union movement saw him expelled from the Australian Labor Party. He was elected to the Australian Senate and led the Democratic Labor Party...
  
  
• Premier of South Australia – Thomas Playford IV
  Thomas Playford IV
  Sir Thomas Playford, GCMG was a South Australian politician. He served continuously as Premier of South Australia from 5 November 1938 to 10 March 1965, the longest term of any elected government leader in the history of Australia. His tenure as premier was marked by a period of population and...
  
  
• Premier of Tasmania – Robert Cosgrove
  Robert Cosgrove
  Sir Robert Cosgrove KCMG was an Australian politician, trade unionist, and twice Premier of Tasmania from 18 December 1939 to 18 December 1947 and 25 February 1948 to 26 August 1958....
  
  
• Premier of Victoria – John Cain I
  John Cain (senior)
  John Cain was an Australian politician, who became the 34th premier of Victoria, and was the first Australian Labor Party leader to win a majority in the Victorian Legislative Assembly. He was the only premier of Victoria whose son also served as premier.-Early life:Cain was born, one of 18...
  
  
• Premier of Western Australia
  Premier of Western Australia
  The Premier of Western Australia is the head of the executive government in the Australian State of Western Australia. The Premier has similar functions in Western Australia to those performed by the Prime Minister of Australia at the national level, subject to the different Constitutions...
  
   – Albert Hawke
  Albert Hawke
  Albert Redvers George Hawke was the 18th Premier of Western Australia.Hawke was born to James Renfrey Hawke and Eliza Ann Blinman Pascoe, both of Cornish descent, in Kapunda, South Australia...
  
  

State Governors

• Governor of New South Wales – Sir John Northcott
  John Northcott
  Lieutenant General Sir John Northcott KCMG, KCVO, CB was an Australian Army general who served as Chief of the General Staff during World War II, and commanded the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in the Occupation of Japan...
  
  
• Governor of Queensland – Sir John Lavarack
  John Lavarack
  Lieutenant General Sir John Dudley Lavarack KCMG, KCVO, KBE, CB, DSO was an Australian soldier who was Governor of Queensland from 1 October 1946 to 4 December 1957, the first Australian-born governor of that state....
  
  
• Governor of South Australia – Sir Robert George
  Robert George
  Air Vice Marshal Sir Robert Allingham George KCMG, KCVO, KBE, CB, MC was a senior officer in the Royal Air Force and Governor of South Australia from 23 February 1953 until 7 March 1960. He was born in the County of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland, on 25 July 1896, and educated at Invergordon and...
  
  
• Governor of Tasmania – Sir Ronald Cross, 1st Baronet
• Governor of Victoria – Sir Dallas Brooks
  Dallas Brooks
  Brooks made his first-class debut for the Royal Navy against Cambridge University in 1919 as a right-handed batsman who bowled right-arm medium. The same season Brooks made his debut for Hampshire against Surrey in the County Championship...
  
  
• Governor of Western Australia
  Governor of Western Australia
  The Governor of Western Australia is the representative in Western Australia of Australia's Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The Governor performs important constitutional, ceremonial and community functions, including:* presiding over the Executive Council;...
  
   – Sir Charles Gairdner
  Charles Gairdner
  General Sir Charles Henry Gairdner, GBE, KCMG, KCVO, CB was a British Army general during World War II and was Governor of Western Australia from 1951 to 1963, and Governor of Tasmania from 1963 to 1968.-Early life:...
  
  

Events

• 3 February – Elizabeth II arrives in Sydney on her first visit as monarch
• 13 February – Mawson Station
  Mawson Station
  Mawson Station is one of three permanent Australian bases in the Australian Antarctic Territory of East Antarctica. Named after Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson, the base is managed by the Australian Antarctic Division...
  
   in the Australian Antarctic Territory
  Australian Antarctic Territory
  The Australian Antarctic Territory is a part of Antarctica. It was claimed by the United Kingdom and placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1933. It is the largest territory of Antarctica claimed by any nation...
  
   is established
• During February, a cyclone hits the Gold Coast
  Gold Coast, Queensland
  Gold Coast is a coastal city of Australia located in South East Queensland, 94km south of the state capital Brisbane. With a population approximately 540,000 in 2010, it is the second most populous city in the state, the sixth most populous city in the country, and also the most populous...
  
   and northern New South Wales, killing 26 http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/cyclone3.htm
• 3 April – Vladimir Petrov
  Vladimir Mikhaylovich Petrov (diplomat)
  Vladimir Mikhaylovich Petrov was a member of the Soviet Union's clandestine services who became famous in 1954 for his defection to Australia.-Early life:...
  
  , a Soviet diplomat, defects to Australia, sparking the Petrov Affair
  Petrov Affair
  The Petrov Affair was a dramatic Cold War spy incident in Australia in April 1954, concerning Vladimir Petrov, Third Secretary of the Soviet embassy in Canberra.- History :...
  
  
• Shirley Bliss wins the Miss Australia Quest
  Miss Australia
  Miss Australia is the title for the winner of the Miss Australia Quest/Awards, which ran from 1954 until 2000, when the last Miss Australia was named....
  
  

Arts and literature

• Ivor Hele
  Ivor Hele
  Sir Ivor Henry Thomas Hele, CBE was an Australian artist. He was the longest serving war artist for the Australian War Memorial and completed more commissioned works than any other Australian artist in the history of Australian art.He was the first war artist appointed in the Second World War, and...
  
   wins the Archibald Prize
  Archibald Prize
  The Archibald Prize is regarded as the most important portraiture prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after a bequest from J. F. Archibald, the editor of The Bulletin who died in 1919...
  
   with his portrait of Rt Hon R G Menzies, PC, CH, QC, MP
• Charles Bannon wins the Blake Prize for Religious Art
  Blake Prize for Religious Art
  The Blake Prize for Religious Art is an annual art prize in Australia.The prize was established in 1949 as an incentive to raise the standard of religious art. Founded by Mr R. Morley, the Reverend Michael Scott SJ, Rector of Newman College, University of Melbourne, and lawyer Mrs M. Tenison, it...
  
   with his work Judas Iscariot

Sport

• Cricket
  • New South Wales
    New South Wales Blues
    The New South Wales cricket team are an Australian first class cricket team based in Sydney, New South Wales...
    
     wins the Sheffield Shield
    Pura Cup
    The Sheffield Shield is the domestic cricket competition of Australia. The tournament is contested between teams from the six states of Australia. Prior to the Shield being established, a number of intercolonial matches were played. The Shield, donated by Lord Sheffield, was first contested during...
    
    

• Football
  • Brisbane Rugby League premiership: Wests
    Wests Panthers
    The Western Suburbs Panthers, often simply referred to as Wests, are a rugby league club from Brisbane, Australia. The Club is the oldest in the QRL and despite absences from the top grade in recent years and several name changes the club continued to operate...
    
     defeated Brothers 35-18
  • New South Wales Rugby League premiership
    New South Wales Rugby League premiership
    The New South Wales Rugby League premiership was the first rugby league football club competition established in Australia. Run by the New South Wales Rugby League from 1908 until 1994, the premiership was the state's and later the country's elite rugby league competition...
    
    : South Sydney
    South Sydney Rabbitohs
    The South Sydney Rabbitohs are an Australian professional rugby league football team based in Redfern, a suburb of South-central Sydney, New South Wales. They participate in the National Rugby League premiership and are one of nine existing teams from the state capital...
    
     defeated Newtown
    Newtown Jets
    The Newtown Jets are an Australian rugby league football club based in Newtown, a suburb of Sydney's inner west. They currently compete in the NSWRL Premier League competition, having left the top grade after the 1983 NSWRFL season...
    
     23-15
  • South Australian National Football League premiership: won by Port Adelaide
    Port Adelaide Magpies
    The Port Adelaide Football Club, nicknamed The Magpies, is an Australian rules football club which competes in the South Australian National Football League...
    
    
  • Victorian Football League premiership: Footscray
    Western Bulldogs
    The Western Bulldogs are an Australian rules football club which plays in the Australian Football League . The club is based at the Whitten Oval in West Footscray, an inner-western suburb of Melbourne...
    
     defeated Melbourne
    Melbourne Football Club
    The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed The Demons, is an Australian rules football club playing in the Australian Football League , based in Melbourne, Victoria....
    
     102-51

• Golf
  • Australian Open
    Australian Open (golf)
    The Australian Open is one of the principal annual golf tournaments on the PGA Tour of Australasia, and also the OneAsia Tour since its formation in 2009. The event was first played in 1904 and takes place toward the end of each year...
    
    : won by Ossie Pickworth
    Ossie Pickworth
    Horace Henry Alfred "Ossie" Pickworth was a leading Australian professional golfer of the 1940s and 1950s, winner of three successive Australian Open titles from 1946 to 1948, the first and last of which came in playoffs against Jim Ferrier.Pickworth was born in Sydney.Unlike his contemporary...
    
    
  • Australian PGA Championship
    Australian PGA Championship
    The Australian PGA Championship, formerly known as the Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA Championship, is a golf tournament on the PGA Tour of Australasia. It is the home tournament of the Australian PGA and dates back to 1905...
    
    : won by Kel Nagle
    Kel Nagle
    Kelvin David George Nagle is an Australian professional golfer best known for winning The Open Championship in 1960. He won at least one tournament each year from 1949 to 1975.Nagle was born in North Sydney...
    
    

• Horse Racing
  • Rising Fast
    Rising Fast
    Rising Fast was an outstanding New Zealand-bred Thoroughbred racehorse. In 1954 he became the only horse in history to win the Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup and Cox Plate races in the same season - the Spring Grand Slam - and since that time no Melbourne Cup winner has performed such a feat...
    
    wins the Caulfield Cup
    Caulfield Cup
    The Caulfield Cup, one of Australia's richest Thoroughbred horse races and the richest of its type in the world is held annually by the Melbourne Racing Club. The race is a handicap like the Melbourne Cup, which means that horses that compete in the Caulfield Cup are capable of running on the...
    
    
  • Rising Fast wins the Cox Plate
    Cox Plate
    The W.S. Cox Plate is an Australian Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne every October by the Moonee Valley Racing Club to honour W.S. Cox, the club's founder. For three-year-olds and over, the race is considered to be the Weight for Age championship of Australasia...
    
    
  • Rising Fast wins the Melbourne Cup
    Melbourne Cup
    The Melbourne Cup is Australia's major Thoroughbred horse race. Marketed as "the race that stops a nation", it is a 3,200 metre race for three-year-olds and over. It is the richest "two-mile" handicap in the world, and one of the richest turf races...
    
    

• Motor Racing
  • The Australian Grand Prix
    Australian Grand Prix
    The Australian Grand Prix is a motor race held annually and is held to be the pinnacle of motor racing in Australia. The Grand Prix is the oldest surviving motor racing competition held in Australia having been held 76 times since it was first run at Phillip Island in 1928. Since 1985 the race has...
    
     was held at Southport
    Southport, Queensland
    -Sport:The Southport Sharks Australian rules football club has a presence in the area, including a club and function centre.-Transport:The Broadwaterway is a foreshoreway that encourages pedestrians and cyclists to travel along the Broadwater foreshores of Southport.A ferry terminal is planned for...
    
     and won by Lex Davison
    Lex Davison
    Alexander Nicholas Davison was a racing driver who won the Australian Grand Prix four times between 1954 and 1961 and won the Australian Drivers' Championship in 1957...
    
     driving a HWM Jaguar
    Hersham and Walton Motors
    Hersham and Walton Motors is the world's longest established Aston Martin business and is well known as a racing car constructor. As a constructor, it is best known for its involvement in Formula Two from 1950 to 1953 and Formula One in 1954...
    
    

• Tennis
  • Australian Open men's singles: Mervyn Rose
    Mervyn Rose
    Mervyn Rose was an Australian male tennis player. He was born in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales and turned professional in 1959...
    
     defeats Rex Hartwig
    Rex Hartwig
    Rex Noel Hartwig was an Australian tennis player.-Wimbledon:He won the doubles in Wimbledon twice: In 1954 with Mervyn Rose and in 1955 with Lew Hoad.-Australian Championships:...
    
     6-2 0–6 6-4 6-2
  • Australian Open women's singles: Thelma Coyne Long
    Thelma Coyne Long
    Thelma Dorothy Coyne Long was one of the female tennis players who dominated Australian tennis from the mid-1930s to the 1950s.-Tennis career:...
    
     defeats Jenny Staley Hoad 6-3 6-4
  • Davis Cup
    Davis Cup
    The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. By...
    
    : Australia
    Australia Davis Cup team
    The Australian Davis Cup team is the second most successful team ever to compete in the Davis Cup, winning the coveted title on 23 separate occasions, second behind the United States with 32....
    
     is defeated by the United States 2–3 in the 1954 Davis Cup
    1954 Davis Cup
    The 1954 Davis Cup was the 43rd edition of the most important tournament between national teams in men's tennis. The Eastern Zone was abandoned for this year, and India moved to the Europe Zone...
    
     final
  • Wimbledon
    The Championships, Wimbledon
    The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...
    
    : Rex Hartwig
    Rex Hartwig
    Rex Noel Hartwig was an Australian tennis player.-Wimbledon:He won the doubles in Wimbledon twice: In 1954 with Mervyn Rose and in 1955 with Lew Hoad.-Australian Championships:...
    
     and Mervyn Rose
    Mervyn Rose
    Mervyn Rose was an Australian male tennis player. He was born in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales and turned professional in 1959...
    
     win the Gentlemen's Pairs
  • Wimbledon
    The Championships, Wimbledon
    The Championships, Wimbledon, or simply Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, considered by many to be the most prestigious. It has been held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, London since 1877. It is one of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments, the other three Majors...
    
    : Jaroslav Drobný
    Jaroslav Drobný
    Jaroslav Drobný was an amateur tennis champion as well as being an ice hockey player for the Czechoslovakian national team...
    
     defeats Ken Rosewall
    Ken Rosewall
    Kenneth Robert Rosewall AM MBE is a former world top-ranking amateur and professional tennis player from Australia. He won 23 Majors including eight Grand Slam singles titles and before the Open Era a record fifteen Pro Slam titles . Rosewall won 9 slams in doubles with a career double grand slam...
    
     13-11 4–6 6-2 9-7 in the Gentlemen's Singles

• Yachting
  • Kurrewa IV takes line honours and Solveig IV wins on handicap in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race
    Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race
    The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, starting in Sydney, Australia on Boxing Day and finishing in Hobart. The race distance is approximately...
    
    

Births

• 25 January – Kay Cottee
  Kay Cottee
  Kay Cottee, AO was the first female sailor to perform a single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation of the world. She performed this feat in 1988 in her yacht Blackmore's First Lady, taking 189 days.-Early life:...
  
  , sailor
• 26 January – Kim Hughes
  Kim Hughes
  Kimberley John Hughes is a former cricketer who played for Western Australia, Natal and Australia. He captained Australia in 28 Tests between 1979 and 1984 before captaining a "rebel" Australian team in a tour of South Africa, who at the time were subject to a sporting boycott.A right-handed...
  
  , cricketer
• 27 April – Mark Holden
  Mark Holden
  Mark Holden is an Australian singer, television personality and barrister. He was one of a panel of three judges on the television series Australian Idol.-Acting career:...
  
  , singer and media personality
• 2 May – Don Cameron
  Donald Cameron (waterpolo)
  Donald "Don" Cameron is a former water polo player from Australia, who became a coach in his sport after his active career. He guided the Australia men's national water polo team to the 8th place at the 2000 Summer Olympics in his native Sydney.-References:*Australian Olympic Team, Handbook 2000...
  
  , water polo player and coach
• 19 May – Phil Rudd
  Phil Rudd
  Phillip Hugh Norman Rudd is an Australian drummer. He is best known for his membership of rock band AC/DC from 1975 until 1983, and again from 1994 to present. After the 1977 departure of bass guitarist Mark Evans, he became the only Australian-born member of the band...
  
  , musician
• 27 May – Pauline Hanson
  Pauline Hanson
  Pauline Lee Hanson is an Australian politician and former leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a political party with a populist and anti-multiculturalism platform...
  
  , politician
• 12 August – Rob Borbidge
  Rob Borbidge
  Robert Edward Borbidge AO , Australian politician, was the 35th Premier of Queensland, and leader of the Queensland branch of the National Party...
  
  , Premier of Queensland
• 13 September – Steve Kilbey
  Steve Kilbey
  Steven John Kilbey is the lead singer-songwriter and bass guitarist for The Church, an Australian rock band. He is also a music producer, poet, and painter....
  
  , musician
• 20 September - James Moloney
  James Moloney
  James "Jim" Moloney is an Australian children's author who has written more than 30 books including The Book of Lies, The Gracey Trilogy, and A Bridge to Wiseman's Cove, which won the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award in 1997...
  
  , author
• 15 October – Steve Bracks
  Steve Bracks
  Stephen Philip Bracks AC is a former Australian politician and the 44th Premier of Victoria. He first won the electoral district of Williamstown in 1994 for the Australian Labor Party, and was party leader and Premier from 1999 to 2007....
  
  , Premier of Victoria
• 12 November – Paul McNamee
  Paul McNamee
  Paul McNamee is a retired Australian tennis player and prominent sports administrator.-Tennis career:...
  
  , tennis player
• 26 November – Jacki MacDonald
  Jacki MacDonald
  Jacki MacDonald is a former Australian television personality.-Career:...
  
  , media personality
• 29 November – Steve Rogers
  Steve Rogers (rugby league footballer)
  Steve Rogers was an Australian rugby league footballer of the 1970s and 80s. He played for the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks and St. George Dragons teams in the New South Wales Rugby League premiership competition and for Widnes in the English competition, usually in the position of centre...
  
   (d. 2006), Rugby league footballer

Deaths

• 19 September – Miles Franklin
  Miles Franklin
  Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, known as Miles Franklin was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, published in 1901...
  
   (b. 1879), writer
• 14 November – Inigo Jones
  Inigo Owen Jones
  Inigo Owen Jones was a meteorologist and farmer. He was born in Croydon, Surrey, England to Owen Jones a civil engineer and a descendant of the architect Inigo Jones...
  
   (b. 1872), meteorologist
• 22 November – Roy Rene
  Roy Rene
  Roy Rene , born Harry van der Sluys, was an Australian comedian and vaudevillian. As the bawdy character Mo McCackie, Rene was one of the most well-known and successful Australian comedians of the 20th century. Roy Rene was born in Adelaide in the 15 of February 1892 with the name Harry van der...
  
  (b. 1892), comedian