- 1774 – Birth of Matthew Flinders, circumnavigator of Australia.
- 1826 – The Australian Subscription Library, the forerunner of the State Library of New South Wales, is founded; it opens on 1 December 1827.
- 1914 – Fourteen people die in a train accident at Exeter, New South Wales.
- 2001 – HIH Insurance folds in the largest corporate collapse in Australian history, a Royal Commission and criminal proceedings followed leading to the imprisonment of director Rodney Adler and two additional former executives.