Year

Important Historic dates in Blacktown and District

Important historic dates

in Australia

1791

Governor Phillip granted land to 13 people at Prospect Hill. These were the first land grants in the Blacktown District.

Australia's population 2873

1792

End of Phillip's governorship

1795-6

Bass and Flinders make voyages in the TOM THUMB

1798

Bass discovers Bass Strait and Westernport.

Bass and Flinders circumnavigate Tasmania in the Norfolk

1800

Population - 16

Australia's population 5217

Flinders's voyage in the INVESTIGATOR

1801

John Macarthur buys 1770 acres at what is now Seven Hills

Governor King orders Aborigines gathering around Parramatta, Georges River and Prospect Hill "to be driven back from the settler's habitation.

1803

Flinders imprisoned in Mauritius

Flinders circumnavigates Australia

1804

Foundation of Hobart. Settlement at Port Dalrymple

Hobart Town is established in Van Diemens Land

1806

Bligh Governor of New South Wales

1808

Mutiny in New South Wales; deposition of Bligh

1809

Macquarie Governor of New South Wales

1813

BlaxIand discovers a way across the Blue Mountains.

Evans discovers the Bathurst plains.

Davey Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land.

1814

Death of Flinders.

Establishment of Civil Court in New South Wales

1816

Bank of New South Wales founded

1823 - 1833

The Native Institute, known as 'Black Town', was built at Plumpton to assimilate the Aborigines into European ways.

1823

Native Institution (School for Aboriginal Children) moved from Parramatta to Black Town.

New South Wales Judicature Act passed

The first Australian wine is exported

1824

Bungarribee House erected for John Campbell.

Hume and Hovell's expedition to Port Phillip

1825

Alteration of western boundary of New South Wales.

Arthur Governor of Van Diemen's Land

1827

Bushranger, Jack Donahue (Wild Colonial Boy) starts robbing in the Blacktown area.

John Oxley leads an expedition to the Liverpool Plains west of present day Tamworth, NSW. This area is settled in the 1830s

1828

Enlargement of the Legislative Council of New South Wales.

1829

Whole of Australia claimed as British territory.

The PARMELIA conveys first immigrants to Swan River

1830

Act establishing trial by jury in New South Wales.

Sturt explores the Murray to the sea. Perth founded.

1833

Port Arthur opens as a penal settlement in Tasmania

1834

Act to establish Colony of South Australia. The Hentys settle at Portland

1836

Adelaide founded

1837

Accession of Queen Victoria.

Melbourne named.

1839

Latrobe appointed superintendent of Port Phillip.

Strzeleeki finds traces of gold

1840

Order in Council discontinuing transportation to Australia.

Eyre starts for the centre of the continent. Strzelecki's journey through Gippsland.

1841

St. Bartholomew's Church, Prospect, dedicated by Bishop Broughton.

Grey appointed Governor of South Australia

1842

Act for the Government of N.S.W. and Van Diemen's Land passed.

1844

Convicts shipped to Port Phillip

1846

Fitzroy 'Governor-General' of Australia. Lieutenant Yule hoists British flag in New Guinea.

1848

Melbourne elects Lord Grey to the Legislative Council

1850’s - 60’s

Original land grants were sub-divided.

1850

Western Australia becomes a penal colony. University of Sydney founded.

Australian Colonies Government Act passed. Railway from Sydney to Goulburn built.

1851

Separation of Victoria from New South Wales.

Gold found at Ballarat

The gold rush begins near Bathurst in New South Wales

1852

University of Melbourne founded

1853

Tasmania named

The last convicts are shipped to Tasmania

1854

The Eureka Stockade

1855

New constitutions come into effect in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. Ballot Act passed in Victoria.

First anti-Chinese legislation passed.

1859

Colony of Queensland proclaimed

1860

Railway comes to Blacktown with the first railway station called 'Black Town Road Station' (Great Western Line).

McDouall and Stuart reaches the centre of the continent

1861

Burke and Wills expedition

1862

First Post Office opens at the railway station.

Becomes Blacktown in official records.

TheVictorian government orders construction of world’s largest equatorially mounted reflector telescope

1863

South Australia undertakes to administer the Northern Territory

1864

Railway extended from Blacktown to Richmond.

1867

Prospect Public School opened.

End of transportation to Western Australia. Gold discovered at Gympie

1868

The last convicts are transported to Australia.

1870

British troops withdrawn from Australia

1872

Overland telegraph line from Adelaide to Port Darwin constructed

1873

Ayers Rock (Ularu) is first sighted by Europeans

1875

Rooty Hill Public School opened.

Iron smelting began in Lithgow under the direction of Enoch Hughes

1876

The last full blooded Tasmanian aboriginal, Truganini, dies

1877

Blacktown Public School opened.

Louis Brennan patents a wire-guided and wire-driven torpedo for harbour defences.

1878

Riverstone Meatworks starts operating.

Black Wednesday' (January 8).

1879

First Australian Trade Union Congress

1880’s

Thousands of residential lots were released in Mount Druitt, Rooty Hill and Marsden Park.

1880

Capture of the Kelly Gang

1882

The Kimberley gold rush

1883

Prospect Police Station Built - Closed 1920

Silver discovered at Broken Hill

1885

St Albans Anglican Church Rooty Hill Opened - Blew down in storm in 1944. Reopened in 1961

Federal Council established

1886

Alroy House, Plumpton was built

John Ashburton Thompson demonstrates that typhoid could be spread by milk

1887

Woodstock Fruit Cannery begins operating.

First Colonial Conference

1888

Prospect Reservoir opened

Intercolonial Conference on Chinese immigration

1889

Marsden Park Public School opens

Arthur James Arnot patents the world's first electric drill.

1890’s

Vineyards began in Minchinbury. Taken over by Penfolds from 1912-1978

1890

Great maritime strike

1899

First Labour Government (Queensland).

Australian contingents sent to South African War

1900

The Commonwealth Constitution before the Imperial Parliament

Sydney: 103 people killed by Bubonic Plague (Sep 30)

1901

First Commonwealth Parliament opened (May 9)

1904

Rooty Hill Police Station Built - Closed 1934

Dalgety selected as site for federal capital

1906

The Shire of Blacktown (104 square miles) was created by Local Government Act of 1906 with the first Council meeting was held at the Rooty Hill School of Arts.

Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club established

PNG officially under Australian control

First demonstration Bondi Lifesaving Reel

1907

Blacktown Police Station Built

Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme begins

The first trunk telephone line linking Sydney and Melbourne is opened

1908

Revocation of choice of Dalgety. Canberra finally selected as site of federal capital

1909

Blacktown School of Arts opened

Compulsory military service instituted in Australia

1912

First aircraft crash in Australia occurred along the railway line between Mt Druitt and Rooty Hill.

First policeman appointed in Blacktown. First Council Chambers opened

General Strike, the first of its kind in the country, following suspension of tramway employees over the right to wear union member badges.

Geelong: First Australian public telephone exchange installed

Commonwealth Bank opens as a savings bank

The Wattle is declared Australia's national flower

1914

Population - 6,000

Australia's population 4,971,778

First airmail delivery from Melbourne to Sydney

Telephone link established between Melbourne and Adelaide

World War I begins. Australia offers Britain 20,000 troops

Cocos Islands: HMAS Sydney destroys German cruiser Emden

1917

Transcontinental Railway opened

1918

Blacktown's first Savings Bank agency opens.

Great battle on the Somme (August 8); capture of Mont St. Quentin by Australian forces.

Defeat and surrender of Germany.

Red Baron shot down by Australian gunfire

First direct wireless message from the UK to Australia

WWI Armistice

1919

Ross and Keith Smith fly from England to Australia by aeroplane

1920

First Blacktown Show held.

First taxi service begins operating in Blacktown (John Miller).

Visit of the Prince of Wales to Australia

QANTAS is formed as a local airline

Melbourne: Farmers form Australian Country Party

Sydney: The Communist Party of Australia formed

First successful flight from Melbourne to Perth

1921

Population - 7,381

Blacktown's first picture theatre opens (Rivoli Theatre).

.

Australia's population 5,510,944

Essendon Airport opens

Melbourne: 44 hour week to become standard Sydney: Mascot Airport opens

Hobart: Opening of Cadbury factory in Claremont

1922

Melbourne: The Industrial Court of Appeal rejects concept of equal pay for women

Author Henry Lawson dies

1923

Vegemite is first produced

1927

Blacktown Fire Station opened in Main Street Blacktown

Federal Parliament opened by Duke of York at the Commonwealth capital, Canberra

1928

Flight by Bert Hinkler from England to Australia, and by Kingsford Smith and Ulm from America to Australia and from Australia to New Zealand.

1930

Electricity came to Blacktown

First Australian-born Governor-General appointed: Sir Isaac Isaacs

Most of Darwin turns out to see flyer Amy Johnson after her epic solo flight from London

Sydney: The 2 spans of the Sydney Harbour Bridge are joined

Phar Lap wins the Melbourne Cup at Flemington.

Phone line links Perth with the rest of the country

1932

Opening of Sydney Harbour Bridge

1933

Population - 13,724.

Australia's population 6,656,695

National Cancer Conference warns of dangers of sunburn causing skin cancer

Western Australia: Referendum produces 2 to 1 vote in favour of WA's secession from the Commonwealth. The British Government later rules WA has no right to request legislation on changes to the constitution

Melbourne: Jewish Community meet at Town Hall to protest over treatment of Jews in Germany

Florence: Bert Hinkler's body discovered near his wrecked plane after disappearing over Italy in January while attempting to fly from England to Australia

Sydney: Australian Women's Weekly launched by RC Packer and son Frank

Cabinet agrees to Royal Commission into treatment of Aborigines in Arnhem Land

Sydney: First traffic lights installed

1939

Council Chambers extended.

Post Office opens in Flushcombe Road.

Second World War begins

Black Friday bushfires rage from South Australian border to Gippsland and NSW. 71 people die

Sydney: Short wave radio service Australia Calling begins broadcasting

1940

Australian forces share in North African campaigns

1942

Darwin bombed and Rabaul captured by Japanese

1945

Defeat of Germany (May).

United Nations' Charter signed.

1946

Rivoli Theatre opened

Lance Hill invents the Hills Hoist

1947

Population - 17,750

Australia's population 7,580,820

Australia joins the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank)

Qantas taken over by Commonwealth

Sydney: Don Bradman scores his 100th century in a cricket match against India

1948

The first all Australian car is produced-the Holden

1949

Warrick Theartre Blacktown opened

Beginning of Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, completed in 1972.

CSIRO founded

1953

Ian Clunies Ross Animal Research Laboratory (C.S.I.R.O.) opens at Prospect.

Riverstone Baby Health Centre opened

Korean War end after 3 years. Australian casualties number 258 killed in action, 977 wounded and 4 missing, presumed killed

Oct 15 Britain explodes the first of 2 atomic bombs at Woomera, west of the rocket range at Emu Field

Oct 27 Britain explodes another atomic bomb at Woomera, known as Operation Totem

Oil is discovered in the Exmouth Gulf off the coast of WA

1954

Population - 31,748

Australia's population 9,089,936

Queen Elizabeth II arrives with Prince Philip for Royal Tour

Australian flag is raised at the new Mawson base in Princess Elizabeth Land in Antarctica, making it the world's most southern human settlement

1955

Railway line electrified to Blacktown

NSW hotels stay open until 10pm. NSW is the 4th Australian state to adopt extended hours

1956

Melbourne hosts the Olympics

1957

Bungarribee House demolished.

Joern Utzon wins Sydney Opera House design competition

Australia's union movement steps up campaign for equal pay for women workers

Remains of The Bounty found off Pitcairn Island

1958

Ambulance Station opens at Blacktown.

Alpha Street Kindergarten opened

Namatjira Hotel Opened

Craiglea Counrty Club opened

QANTAS international services commence

NSW: Australia's biggest reservoir, Lake Eucumbene, is completed

Dublin: New world record for the mile as runner Herb Elliott clocks in at 3 mins 54.5 secs

1959

Russian Orthodox Church Opened

Riverstone RSL Opened

Pye House Built (Campbell Street)

Ace Squash Courts opened

First Westfield Shopping Centre in Australia opened 9 July costing £200,000

First stage of Blacktown Workers Club approved 30 July estimated to be £50,000

1960

Blacktown linked to Sydney and Metropolitan telephone exchanges.

Hotels and theatres open for the first time on Anzac Day. Organised sport allowed in the afternoon

1961

Blacktown became a Municipality on 17th June.

Blacktown Swimming Pool is opened.

Blacktown Fire Station moved to Austral Street (Austral street now under Westpoint)

Sydney: Last tram runs from La Perousse to Randwick workshops

Woman fined for being "unsuitably dressed" wearing a bikini at Bondi Beach

Obstetrician Dr William McBride confirms the anti nausea drug thalidomide is linked to birth defects

1963

Blacktown Skyline Drivein Opened

Sir John Eccles is awarded Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on transmission of nerve impulses

1965

Blacktown Hospital opens.

Australian troops sent to the Vietnam War

The first hydrofoil ferry service begins

Dawn Fraser becomes youngest person to be named Australian of the Year

1966

Population - 111,488

Blacktown Court House and Police Station opens.

Housing Commission developments starts in Mt. Druitt.

Australia's population 11,704,843

Adelaide: The Beaumont children, Jane, Arnna & Grant disappear from the suburb of Glenelg

Australia changes over to decimal currency.

Joern Utzon quits the construction of the Sydney Opera House

Sydney: The first Australian conscripts fly out for Vietnam. Anti-conscription and anti-Vietnam War demonstrators could not get near the RAAF base at Richmond

Long Tan: Australian troops encounter one of the bloodiest episodes yet with the Viet Cong

1967

Blacktown Library opened.

Melbourne: Ronald Ryan is the last man to hang in Australia for the murder of a prison warder while escaping from Melbourne's Pentridge Jail. His execution would result in the abolition of the death penalty.

90% of white Australians vote in referendum for proposal to count aborigines in the census and to allow the federal government to make special laws for them

1969

K-Mart opens in Blacktown.

Blacktown TAFE opened.

Seven Hills Police Station Built

Prime Minister Gorton announces phased withdrawal of Australian troops from Vietnam

1970

Mt Druitt Police Station Built (14th September)

The world's first laser lighthouse goes into operation at Point Danger, NSW.

Pier Edman invents a process for sequencing proteins at the St Vincents Research Institute in Melbourne.

1971

Blacktown Fire Station moved to Herewood Highway

Neville Bonner becomes the first Aboriginal to be a Member of Parliament

1972

Blacktown Brickworks opened - Now housing development at Woodcroft

Changeover from Farenheit to Celsius for temperature measurement

1973

Westpoint Shopping Centre opens in Blacktown.

Mt. Druitt Shopping Centre opened.

Hobart: Australia's first legal casino opens at Wrest Point

Brisbane: 15 people killed in Whisky A Go Go nightclub fire-bomb attack.

Canberra: Attorney-General Senator Lionel Murphy orders a Commonwealth Police raid on the Melbourne headquarters of the ASIO, after the police told them they believed ASIO was withholding information concerning Croatian extremists in Australia

The Queen officially opens the Sydney Opera House

1974

Blacktown-Richmond Railway line electrified.

Village Twin Cinema opened in Blacktown.

10 prisoners shot and buildings burned to the ground after six hours of rioting at Bathurst Jail

Darwin: Cyclone Tracy destroys the city in the early hours of Christmas Day, killing 65 people

1975

Population - 165,000

Australia's population 13,968,881

Hobart: Part of the Tasman Bridge across the Derwent River collapses when the bulk carrier Lake Illawarra slams into a pylon and sinks. 12 people die, some in cars as they plunged from the bridge to the river

First colour broadcast ABC TV

The Family Law Court is established

Canberra: National health scheme Medibank launched

1975

Current Blacktown Police Station built

Public FM radio and colour television broadcasts begin -- test broadcasts had happened many years earlier.

1976

Parklea Skyline Drive In opened - Closed 1984

1978

2WS Radio Station started broadcasting.

Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) established

Federal Government accepts Indonesia's takeover of East Timor

Sydney: Two council workers killed after a bomb explodes outside the Hilton Hotel during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM)

NT achieves self government under Paul Everingham as Chief Minister

Melbourne: Ten year's research by Prof Graeme Clark results in world first cochlear implant (bionic ear) operation at the Royal Victorian Eye & Ear Hospital

1979

Blacktown became a City on 7th March. Mt. Druitt TAFE opened.

Sydney: An 18-year-old Ukrainian woman, Lilllian Gasinskaya, jumps ship in Sydney Harbour, wearing only a red bikini. She later tells reporters it was her only chance to seek asylum

Melbourne: The Full Bench of the Arbitration Commission grants maternity leave for all women in private industry in a test case by the ACTU

Sydney: Australia's first international air hijack attempt ends with the police shooting dead an Italian man after a 5-hour standoff

More than 3,000 truck drivers in Qld, NSW, Victoria and SA block major highways in protest over road taxes

Sydney: A fire on the ghost train at Luna Park claims 7 lives

Sydney: The city's eastern suburbs railway, originally planned in the 1870s, is opened

Western Australia: US space station Skylab rains debris onto a sparsley populated area of Western Australia

Sydney: The NSW Royal Commission on Drug Trafficking finds a link between drug dealers and the death of anti drug campaigner Donald MacKay

1981

Population - 181,139.

Council granted its Coat of Arms.

Australia's population 15,054,117

Melbourne: Trevor Chappell bowls the last ball underarm against New Zealand and outrages fans and cricket officials

1982

Mt. Druitt Hospital opened.

Brisbane: Prince Philip Opens Commonwealth Games

Canberra: The Queen opens the new Australian National Gallery

Sydney: The Australian Women's Weekly becomes a monthly publication

1983

Parklea Prison opens.

Australia wins the America's Cup

72 people die during Ash Wednesday bushfires which sweep through Victoria and South Australia. The fire casualties are the worst in Australia's history

Canberra: Federal Government floats the Australian dollar

1986 - 2004

Australia's Wonderland operates

1988

Bicentenary

The new Parliament House opens in Canberra

1990

First race at Eastern Creek Raceway.

Sydney: Channel 10 goes in receivership with debts totalling more than $450 million

Dame Joan Sutherland's farewell with her last stage performance as Marguerite de Valois in the Sydney Opera House production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots

Treasurer Paul Keating admits Australia is in recession and makes reference to Australia becoming a "banana republic"

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission founded (ATSIC)

AARnet established by CSIRO & Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (first step of Internet in Australia)

1991

Population - 211,613

First Australian 500 cc Grand Prix at Eastern Creek Raceway.

Australia's population 17,387,023

Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) approves Enterprise Bargaining

1993

2WS starts broadcasting on FM band.

Unknown Soldier Memorial installed at the national War Memorial

1996

Population of the Blacktown Local Government Area at the census was 232,219.

Australia's population 18,420,320

Port Arthur, Tas: 35 people die when gunman Martin Bryant rampages through the old convict settlement with an Armalite semiautomatic rifle. It was the worst peace-time massacre by a single gunman on record

1997

Blacktown Fire Station moved to 222 Richmond Road

2000

Blacktown City Olympic Park (Doonside) is the venue for Olympic softball and 2nd venue for Olympic baseball during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

New Blacktown Hospital Opens.

Sydney Hosts the Olympics and Paralympics

South Australian scientists clone the first sheep in Australia, Matilda

Introduction of the GST

2001

Population of Blacktown Local Government area at the census was 256,364.

St Bartholomew's Church restored.

Australia's population 19,529,274

Adelaide: Cricket legend Sir Donald Bradman dies at 92

Australian Dollar drops below 50 US cents for the first time

Ansett Airlines collapses

Scientists grow stem cells from mouse brains

2002

Blacktown Arts Centre opens in former Christ Church, Flushcombe Road, Blacktown.

Federal & State Governments agree to work towards uniform national laws to govern embryonic stem cell research

NSW: Two-thirds of the state drought-declared

Australia decides to ratify the International Criminal Court

Norfolk Island: Australian Federal Police launch mass voluntary finger printing of island residents in an attempt to catch the killer of Janelle Patten, the first murder victim on the island since convict days

Queensland: 38 shires now drought-declared, representing 15% of Qld. Further individual drought-affected properties bring the total to 60% of the Qld land mass

Bali: Around 190 people, including at least 85 Australians, are killed after a car bomb explodes outside a Kuta nightclub

2003

Blacktown Leisure Centre, Stanhope opens.

Work begins on the M7 (Western Sydney Orbitol).

Construction of a new central library at Blacktown commenced.

New interchange at Mt Druitt station commenced.

Construction of extensions to Westpoint Shopping Centre commenced.

Bushfires across ACT, Vic, NSW, SA & Tas destroy homes and livestock throughout January and into February. Hundreds of people evacuate alpine towns in Victoria and NSW. On Jan 18 - Jan 21 bushfires in Canberra destroy more than 100 homes, mainly in the western suburbs, and most of the historic Mount Stromlo observatory and telescope.

Service commemorates the 61st Anniversary of the bombing of Darwin during WWII.

Australia signs 30-billion dollar gas agreement with China, one of the largest of its kind in the world and Australia's single biggest export deal.

2004

Bicentennial of the Battle of Vinegar Hill.

The Ghan becomes the first passenger train to travel from Adelaide to Darwin

Qantas launches its discount domestic airline Jetstar in Melbourne and offers 100,000 discount seat at $29 one way

World War I veteran Ted Smout dies, aged 106

2005

Population exceeds 290,000.

New Blacktown City Max Webber Library opens on Flushcombe Road.

Australia's population exceeds 20,209,993

Australia commemorates the 60th anniversary of VP Day

New York, USA: USA court fines Russell Crowe after he pleads guilty to hitting a hotel clerk with a telephone

2006

The city celebrates a Centenary of Local Government.

Alroy House's restoration is completed and opens as Alroy Tavern

18th Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne

2007

Blacktown and District Historical Society goes live on the world wide web

Blacktown West Public School celebrates its 50th birthday.

Australia hosts the APEC summit attracting over 20 of the worlds leaders. Sydney shut down for around 7 days

2008

Beijing China embrases the world at the Olympics. Australia comes in 6th Place

14 Gold Medals, 15 Silver Medals 17 Silver Medals