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

October 1

Royal Exhibition Building

• 1880 – The Melbourne International Exhibition was opened at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton.
• 1918 – Australian troops capture Damascus.
• 1925 – Greater Brisbane was inaugurated as a single municipal authority under Brisbane City Council.
• 1981 – The National Bank of Australasia and the Commercial Bank of Australasia merged to form the National Australia Bank.
• 1988 – The ALP government of John Cain is narrowly re-elected for a third term in Victoria.
• 2005 – The 2005 Bali bombings take place, killing 23 people (including the three suicide bombers) and injuring 129. Four of the dead and 19 of the injured are Australian.

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October 2

Gladesville Bridge: The span of the bridge is 300 m (1,000 ft) and at its highest point gives a clearance of 60 m (200 ft)

• 1935 – John Curtin replaces James Scullin as leader of the Australian Labor Party.
• 1964 – Gladesville Bridge (pictured) opened—the world's longest concrete arch at the time.
• 1981 – Luke Wilkshire, Australian football (soccer) player, was born in Wollongong.
• 1990 – Opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland announces her retirement.

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October 3

The explosion cloud resulting from the Operation Hurricane detonation

• 1933 – Neale Fraser, tennis player and member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, was born in Melbourne.
• 1950 – Pitting Australian and British forces against communist China, the First Battle of Maryang San in the Korean War begins
• 1952 – The first British nuclear test is conducted at Montebello Islands, Western Australia, at the invitation of the Menzies government.
• 1957 – Australian National Airways (ANA) is merged with Ansett to form Ansett-ANA.
• 1985 – The first Australian Formula One Grand Prix is raced in Adelaide.
• 1998 – The John Howard-led Coalition returned to power at federal election.
• 1992 – A Victorian state election sees Jeff Kennett and the Liberal Party defeat the incumbent Labor Government of Joan Kirner.

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October 4

Princes Bridge over the Yarra River, Melbourne

• 1888 – Prince's Bridge over the Yarra River in Melbourne is officially opened.
• 1914 – Jim Cairns, Deputy Prime Minister in the Whitlam government, was born in Carlton.
• 1935 – Luna Park in Sydney is officially opened.

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October 5

Samuel Griffith, first Chief Justice of Australia

• 1892 – The Australian Cricket Council announces an intercolonial cricket competition to be known as the Sheffield Shield.
• 1903 – Samuel Griffith is appointed as the first Chief Justice of Australia.
• 1933 – Diane Cilento, theater and film actress was born in Brisbane.
• 1979 – Vince Grella, football (soccer) midfielder, and member of Australia's 2006 World Cup team was born in Dandenong, Victoria.
• 1990 – After one hundred and fifty years, The Herald broadsheet newspaper in Melbourne is published for the last time as a separate newspaper. The first edition of the Herald-Sun appears on the 8th of October.
• 1990 – The Daily Mirror in Sydney is published for the last time as a separate newspaper. The first edition of The Daily Telegraph-Mirror appears on the 8th of October.

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October 6

Henry Forster, 1st Baron Forster

• 1810 – A town plan of Sydney was published, on which the streets were given new and permanent names, including Market, George, Park and Barrack Streets.
• 1862 – The Melbourne Zoo is opened.
• 1903 – The High Court of Australia opens in Melbourne.
• 1911 – Compulsory voting is introduced.
• 1920 – Henry Forster, 1st Baron Forster is appointed the seventh Governor-General of Australia, his appointment the first in consultation with the Australian Government.
• 1930 – Richie Benaud, one of the greatest leg-spinners to have played Test cricket, was born in Penrith, New South Wales.
• 1972 – A school teacher and her six pupils are kidnapped for A$1 million ransom in the Faraday School kidnapping.
• 1978 – Rock and roll singer Johnny O'Keefe dies.
• 1992 – Jeff Kennett becomes Premier of Victoria, after defeating Joan Kirner in the 1992 Victorian state election.
• 1992 – Death of Bill O'Reilly, cricketer, and well-respected cricket writer and broadcaster, in Sydney aged 87.

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October 7

Poster issued in Van Diemen's Land during the Black War depicting Lieutenant-Governor Davey's policy of friendship and equal justice for settlers and Aborigines.

• 1798 – George Bass and Matthew Flinders leave Sydney to explore Van Diemen's Land.
• 1816 – Reverend Samuel Leigh opens the first Methodist church in Australia, at Castlereagh, New South Wales.
• 1830 – The "Black Line" campaign of the Black War begins in an attempt to capture all Tasmanian Aborigines. The campaign lasts seven weeks and only succeeds in bringing two Aborigines to the authorities.
• 1919 – Sir Zelman Cowen, 19th Governor-General of Australia, was born in Melbourne.
• 1919 – Death of Alfred Deakin, leader of the movement for Australian federation and second Prime Minister of Australia, aged 63.
• 1935 – Thomas Keneally, novelist and author of Schindler's List, was born in Homebush, New South Wales.
• 1941 – John Curtin becomes the fourteenth Prime Minister of Australia.

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October 8

Sir John Monash

• 1897 – The Australasian Athletic Union was established in Sydney.
• 1899 – The word wowser is first used by John Norton, editor of the Melbourne Truth newspaper.
• 1908 – The capital of Australia was chosen, settling a feud between rivals Melbourne and Sydney.
• 1925 – John Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven is appointed the eighth Governor General of Australia.
• 1928 – Neil Harvey, Australian cricketer, was born in Fitzroy, Melbourne.
• 1931 – Death of Sir John Monash, Australian military commander of the First World War, in Melbourne aged 66.
• 1939 – Paul Hogan AM, actor, comedian and former rigger, was born in Lightning Ridge, New South Wales.
• 1978 – Australia's Ken Warby sets the current world water speed record of 510 km/h (317.60 mph) at Blowering Dam, New South Wales.
• 2003 – Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark's engagement to Australian lawyer Mary Donaldson is announced.
• 2004 – Schapelle Corby is apprehended by police in Indonesia carrying 4.1 kg of cannabis.

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October 9

Prime Minister John Curtin adopted the Statute of Westminster in 1942 following the Battle of Singapore

• 1888 – Launceston, Tasmania is proclaimed a city.
• 1891 – The ceremonial mace is stolen from Victoria's Parliament House, Melbourne.
• 1942 – The Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, which symbolically represents Australia's indepdendence from the United Kingdom, becomes law.
• 1975 – Mark Viduka, Australian and Middlesbrough football (soccer) striker, was born in Melbourne.
• 2004 – John Howard is reelected in Federal election.

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October 10

Cooee marchers of 1915

• 1835 – Governor Bourke implemented the doctrine of terra nullius by proclaiming that Indigenous Australians could not sell or assign land, nor could an individual person acquire it, other than through distribution by the Crown.
• 1880 – Geologist Lamont Young and four others disappeared on a boat trip north from Bermagui, New South Wales.
• 1892 – Jackie Howe shears a total of 321 sheep in 7 hours and 40 minutes at Blackall, Queensland, a record for hand shears that still stands.
• 1915 – Twenty-six men left Gilgandra, New South Wales on the "Cooee March"; the first of the World War I Snowball marches. At each town on the route they shouted "cooee" to attract recruits; the march arrived in Sydney on 12 November with 263 recruits
• 1923 – Telephone link between Sydney and Brisbane officially opened.
• 1924 – Commonwealth Electoral Act was enacted making voting in federal elections compulsory.
• 1924 – James Clavell, novelist, screenwriter, and World War II POW, was born in Sydney.
• 1996 – Schoolboy Tjandamurra O'Shane is set alight in his school playground in a racial attack.
• 2004 – The John Howard-led Coalition is returned to power at federal election, and gains control of the Senate.

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October 11

Keith Miller: "Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not."

• 1852 – The University of Sydney was inaugurated, Australia's first university.
• 1930 – Collingwood Football Club won the premiership (football competition) for the fourth consecutive year.
• 1935 – John Latham is appointed as the fifth Chief Justice of Australia.
• 1997 – The Liberal/National coalition government of John Olsen is re-elected in South Australia for another term, albeit with a substantially reduced minority.
• 2004 – Keith Miller, Test cricketer and World War II pilot died in Melbourne aged 84.

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October 12

National Gallery of Australia

• 1846 – Bushranger Lawrence Kavenagh is executed by hanging.
• 1912 – A fire at Mount Lyell traps miners underground, killing 42 men.
• 1923 – Cairns, Queensland is proclaimed a city.
• 1982 – The National Gallery of Australia is opened in Canberra.
• 1985 – Canon Arthur Marshall became the first Aboriginal bishop in Australia.
• 1988 – Two police officers are killed in the Walsh Street police shootings.
• 2002 – Eighty-eight Australians are killed in Bali in bombings committed by Jemaah Islamiyah.
• 2003 – Death of Jim Cairns, Deputy Prime Minister in the Whitlam government, aged 89.
• 2004 – Simon Crean resigns from the position of Shadow Treasurer, and John Faulkner resigns as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate in the aftermath of the Australian Labor Party's election loss.

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October 13

Sydney Boys High School as viewed from Moore Park.

• 1883 – Sydney High School enrolls its first students.
• 1933 – Australia's first traffic lights are installed in Sydney.
• 1982 – Five-time Olympic gold medal winning swimmer Ian Thorpe was born in Milperra.

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October 14

Portrait of Miles Franklin, circa 1940s.

• 1824 – W. C. Wentworth and Robert Wardell begin publication of The Australian, the first independent newspaper in Australia.
• 1879 – Author Miles Franklin born at Talbingo, New South Wales.
• 1923 – Severe floods in Melbourne, two people drown.
• 1935 – The Hornibrook Bridge opens, connecting Brisbane and Redcliffe, the 2.8 km bridge is one of the longest timber and girder bridges in Australia.
• 1958 – Death of Douglas Mawson, Antarctic explorer and geologist, aged 76.
• 1959 – Radio comedian and quiz show host Jack Davey dies.
• 1959 – Death of Errol Flynn, flamboyant film actor, in Vancouver, British Columbia, aged 50. He shares coffin space with six bottles of whiskey, a parting gift from his drinking buddies.
• 1968 – The town of Meckering, Western Australia, is badly damaged by an earthquake.

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October 15

West Gate Bridge, Melbourne

• 1923 – Lindsay Thompson, Liberal Premier of Victoria from 1981 to 1982, is born in Warburton.
• 1940 – Peter Doherty, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1996, and Australian of the Year in 1997, was born in Brisbane.
• 1953 – The first of two nuclear tests in Operation Totem was conducted at Woomera, South Australia.
• 1954 – Peter Bakowski, Australian poet, was born in Melbourne.
• 1970 – A portion of the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne collapses, killing 35.
• 1997 – Cheryl Kernot, leader of the Australian Democrats defected to the Australian Labor Party.

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October 16

Map of East Timor.

• 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.

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October 17

• 1854 – The Melbourne daily newspaper The Age was first published.
• 1898 – The Perth Zoo opens with two lions and a tiger.
• 1900 – Natural gas is found at Roma in Queensland.
• 1917 – The two halves of the Trans-Australian Railway meet.
• 1917 – Sumner Locke Elliott, Australian (later American) novelist, and author of Careful, He Might Hear You, was born in Sydney.
• 1938 – Les Murray, poet and essayist is born in Nabiac, New South Wales.

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October 18

Billy Murdoch

• 1790 – HMS Supply returns from Batavia with more supplies for the colony.
• 1854 – Billy Murdoch, regarded as the finest cricket batsman of his day, was born in Sandhurst, Victoria.
• 1869 – The Lithgow Zig Zag Railway was opened.
• 1919 – Adrian Knox is appointed as the second Chief Justice of Australia.
• 1934 – Charles Prince of Morphettville is found guilty of fraud for the "ring in" of Redlock at the Murray Bridge Racing Club on July 28.
• 1942 – Larry Pickering, political cartoonist, caricaturist and illustrator, was born.
• 1980 – The federal election sees Malcolm Fraser's Liberal/National coalition government re-elected for a third consecutive term, albeit with an almost halved majority.

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October 19

SIEV X Memorial Sunday, 15 October 2006, Canberra.

• 1812 – Indefatigable, the first direct convict transport from Britain to Tasmania arrives in Hobart.
• 1872 – Holtermann's nugget, a 286 kg slab of granite containing 82.11 kg of gold, was found in New South Wales.
• 1900 – Bill Ponsford, Australian batsman who twice broke the world record for the highest first-class score, is born in North Fitzroy, Melbourne.
• 1960 – Death of George Wallace, comedian, vaudevillian and film star, aged 65, at Kensington, New South Wales.
• 1979 – The Australian Federal Police is established.
• 1991 – The perjury trial of former Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen ends in a hung jury. Prosecutors decide against a retrial on the basis of Joh's advancing age & divided public opinion.
• 1999 – Steve Bracks sworn in as Premier of Victoria after defeating Jeff Kennett in the 1999 Victorian state election.
• 2000 – Charles Perkins, Aboriginal activist dies.
• 2001 – SIEV-X, an Indonesian fishing boat en route to Christmas Island, carrying over 400 asylum seekers, sank in international waters with the loss of 353 people.

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October 20

The Sydney Opera House.

• 1973 – The Sydney Opera House is opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
• 1987 – The Black Monday stockmarket crash causing the All Ordinaries Index to fall 25%, the single biggest one day drop in the market's history.
• 1989 – The Grafton bus crash occurs, with 21 people killed and 22 injured when a tourist bus collides with a semi-trailer on the Pacific Highway near Grafton.

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October 21

Menzies Building at Monsah

• 1944 – The heavy cruiser HMAS Australia is rammed by a Japanese aircraft while operating in the Philippines, in what is claimed to be the first kamikaze attack.
• 1952 – Trevor Chappell, the youngest of the Chappell cricketing brothers, is born in Glenelg, South Australia.
• 1962 – David Campese, former rugby union wing, is born in Queanbeyan.
• 1978 – Civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanishes in a Cessna 182 over Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft.
• 1986 – Death of Lionel Murphy, Attorney-General in the Government of Gough Whitlam, and a Justice of the High Court of Australia, aged 64.
• 2002 – Two people die in the Monash University shooting.

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October 22

• 1894 – Martha Needle is hanged in Melbourne Gaol for the poisoning of her husband, and three children, in an attempt to obtain money from insurance policies.
• 1928 – Death of Andrew Fisher, fifth Prime Minister of Australia, aged 66.
• 1929 – James Scullin becomes the ninth Prime Minister of Australia.
• 2003 – US President George W. Bush and President of the People's Republic of China Hu Jintao visit Australia simultaneously.

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October 23

October 24, 1942. During the Second Battle of El Alamein, this photograph, showing Australian soldiers "attacking", was staged by British Army photographer Sgt Len Chetwyn.

• 1937 – The ACTU calls on the government to boycott trade with Japan, following the Japanese invasion of China.
• 1942 – The Battle of El Alamein, in Egypt, began with a massive artillery bombardment preceding attacks by British and Australian divisions.
• 1978 – Archie Thompson, Melbourne Victory football (soccer) player, is born in New Zealand.
• 1991 – First general strike in 65 years takes place in New South Wales.

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October 24

Henry Parkes

• 1889 – The Tenterfield Oration is delivered by Henry Parkes, calling for the Federation of the states.
• 1907 – Chris Watson resigns as leader of the Australian Labor Party.
• 1934 – C.W.A. Scott and Tom Campbell Black cross the finishing line and win the MacRobertson Air Race, flying from London to Melbourne in an elapsed time of 71 hours.
• 1980 – The Special Broadcasting Service begins full-time television transmission in Melbourne and Sydney, Bruce Gyngell who was the first man to speak on Australian television in 1956 did the honours.

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October 25

Parliament House, Victoria

• 1938 – Kyeema air disaster kills 18 in Mount Dandenong, Victoria.
• 1941 – Singer Helen Reddy is born in Melbourne.
• 1990 – Nelson Mandela visits the Parliament of Victoria, eight-and-a-half months after his release from prison in South Africa.
• 2003 – Australia defeat Namibia in the 2003 Rugby World Cup by a record 142 points to nil.
• 2004 – A car bomb explodes near the Australian embassy in Baghdad, killing several Iraqi civilians and injuring three Australian soldiers

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October 26

Uluru in the evening

• 1616 – Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog is the first European explorer to reach Western Australia.
• 1921 – the first group of Barnardo's Boys arrived in Sydney.
• 1958 – The wreckage of the Australian National Airways Avro 618 Ten Southern Cloud is found after 27 years missing.
• 1964 – Eric Edgar Cooke hanged, last person in Western Australia to be executed.
• 1981 – Guy Sebastian, winner of the first series of Australian Idol in 2003 is born in Klang, Malaysia.
• 1985 – The Mutitjulu people of central Australia were given freehold title to Uluru and the surrounding National Park.
• 2002 – Federation Square in Melbourne is opened.

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October 27

St Patrick's

• 1897 – St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne is consecrated.
• 1900 – Notorious murderer Jimmy Governor is apprehended near Wingham, New South Wales.
• 1915 – Billy Hughes becomes the seventh Prime Minister of Australia and the first to serve consecutive terms in office.
• 1927 – Melbourne gangster Squizzy Taylor is killed in a shootout.
• 1953 – British nuclear test Totem 2 is detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.
• 1964 – Mark Taylor, Australian cricket player and Test captain from 1994–1999, is born in Leeton, New South Wales.
• 1980 – The Great Barrier Reef is listed as a World Heritage Site.
• 1990 – Northern Territory elections return Country Liberal Party government of Marshall Perron to power.
• 2002 – Terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) is banned by the Attorney-General.

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October 28

IWW anti-conscription poster, 1916

• 1834 – The Battle of Pinjarra occurs in the Swan River Colony in present-day Pinjarra, Western Australia. Between 14–40 Aborigines are killed by British colonists.
• 1855 – Francis James Gillen, an early anthropologist who studied Indigenous culture was born.
• 1886 – William Bede Dalley, Australia's first member of the Privy Council, dies in Sydney.
• 1916 – The first plebiscite on the issue of military conscription was held; it was defeated.
• 1952 – Death of Billy Hughes, the seventh Prime Minister of Australia, aged 90.
• 1969 – Christo and Jeanne-Claude complete the Wrapped Coast, using 9,300 m² synthetic fabric and 56 km rope to wrap Little Bay, New South Wales.
• 1971 – The British satellite Prospero X-3 was launched into space from Woomera, South Australia, making Britain the seventh country with a satellite.

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October 29

The War Precautions Act was used to ban the use of the red flag, a traditional labour emblem.

• 1914 – The War Precautions Act 1914, which gave the Government of Australia special powers for the duration of World War I and for six months afterwards, was passed by the Parliament of Australia.
• 1953 – British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines (BCPA) Douglas DC-6, registration VH-BPE, en route from Sydney, crashes on approach to San Francisco, killing 19.
• 1981 – Jonathan Brown, Australian Football League player for the Brisbane Lions, is born.
• 1982 – Lindy Chamberlain is sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of her baby daughter Azaria; husband Michael Chamberlain is charged as an accessory.
• 1997 – Australian economist and first Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia H. C. Coombs dies.

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October 30

Expo '88 on the banks of the Brisbane River

• 1920 – The Communist Party of Australia was formed.
• 1942 – Australian 9th Division reaches sea in Battle of El Alamein.
• 1965 – Jean Shrimpton bares her knees at the Victoria Derby race during Melbourne Cup week.
• 1969 – Death of Vic Richardson Australian cricketer and outstanding all-round sportsman, aged 75.
• 1988 – Expo '88 draws to a close after running for six months.

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October 31

Parkes Observatory

• 1823 – John Oxley explores the Tweed River.
• 1851 – The New South Wales Legislative Council votes unanimously against transportation "in any form whatsoever, to any part of Her Majesty's Australian possessions".
• 1895 – Middleweight boxer Les Darcy is born.
• 1923 – The start of 160 consecutive days of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit at Marble Bar, Western Australia.
• 1923 – The Victorian Police strike commenced; half the police force in Melbourne went on strike and rioting and looting ensued.
• 1929 – Eddie Charlton, top-class snooker and billiards player, is born in Merewether, New South Wales.
• 1961 – Parkes radiotelescope officially opened by the Governor General.
• 2003 – Ted Egan, folk musician and public servant, becomes Administrator of the Northern Territory.

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