- 1792 – Governor of New South Wales Captain Arthur Phillip is granted leave and permitted to return to England.
- 1817 – Bushranger Michael Howe is caught, but escapes after killing his captors.
- 1895 – Launceston, Tasmania becomes first city in Australia to have streets lit by electricity.
- 1915 – Father and son scientists William Henry Bragg and Lawrence Bragg win the Nobel Prize in Physics, and are the first Australians awarded the prize.
- 1919 – Ross and Keith Macpherson Smith complete the first flight from Britain to Australia.
- 1923 – Sculptor Daphne Mayo became the first woman to receive a medal for sculpture from the Royal Academy.
- 1934 – Qantas makes its first international flight from Darwin to Singapore.
- 2002 – The High Court of Australia hands down judgment in the Internet defamation case, Gutnick v Dow Jones.