Australia becomes a federation on 1 January. Edmund Barton becomes Prime Minister; the 7th Earl of Hopetoun becomes Governor-General.

The Australian National Flag was flown for the first time.

Queen Victoria's death.

The constitution is passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom as a schedule to the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, and is given royal assent.

First motor car arrives in Perth, Western Australia.

H. G. Wells publishes The War of the Worlds.

Olympic Games revived in Athens.

Paddy Hannan finds Gold at Kalgoorlie.

Gold found at Coolgardie by Arthur Bayley.

Leon Bouly invents cinematographic film camera

Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera

A National Australasian Convention meets, agrees on adopting the name "the Commonwealth of Australia" and drafting a constitution.

The cardboard box is invented.

Eiffel Tower completed (to mark centenary of French Revolution)

Celluloid photographic film introduced

Jack the Ripper murders occur in Whitechapel, London.

Dunlop invents pneumatic tyre

First box camera - George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak, and receives a patent for his camera which uses roll film

Emile Berliner patents the gramophone

An Australian cricket team is established, defeating England in the first Ashes series.

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson is published.

Pharmacist John Styth Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage later named Coca-Cola

First Australian rules football match played.

Carl Benz builds the \'Motorwagen\', a single-cylinder motor car

Gottlieb Daimler patents the world\'s first motorcycle

John Harvey Kellogg patents corn flakes

Mark Twain publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Eruption of Krakatoa near Java - 30,000 killed by tidal wave

Statue of Liberty presented to USA by France

Ned Kelly hung at the Melbourne Gaol.

Edison & Swan invent electric lamp

Edison invents microphone and phonograph

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone

Nikolas August Otto designed the first four-stroke piston engine

Official acceptance of flag of Western Australia.

Transportation of convicts from England to Australia ends. Last ship Hougoumont docked at Fremantle, Western Australia.

Alfred Nobel patented dynamite

Abraham Lincoln assassinated in Ford\'s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth

Red Cross established - Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention

First pasteurisation test completed by Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard

American Civil War between the Union and seceding Confederacy.

Charles Darwin publishes \'The Origin of Species\'

Neanderthal man first identified.

Victorian gold rush.

Ship Scindian arrives with first convicts for Swan River Colony, numbering 75.

The sewing machine is patented by Elias Howe

The rubber band patented by Stephen Perry

The Irish Potato Famine or the Great Famine was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration, approximately 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland.

The word "dinosaur" is coined by Richard Owen.

New Zealand is founded, as the Treaty of Waitangi is signed by the Māori and British.

Charles Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber

First brewery established in Western Australia.

Yagan is shot dead.

Slavery Abolition Act bans slavery throughout the British Empire.

Yagan was captured and sent to Carnac Island. He escaped 6 weeks later by taking the boat belonging to his captors. No attempt to recapture him was made, the six weeks being considered adequate penalty.

Swan River Colony has its name changed to Western Australia.

Electric telegraph invented by Morse

James Clark Ross discovers the North Magnetic Pole

Faraday in the first in a series of Experimental Researches in Electricity discovered the means of producing electricity from magnetism i.e. electromagnetic induction the generation of an electric field by a changing magnetic field. This is the principle of the dynamo

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is established.

City of Perth proclaimed.

Louis Braille invents his system of finger-reading for the blind

Captain James Stirling appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Swan River Colony 'Headlines of History' by Ian Edwards

Edmund Lockyer arrives from NSW at Albany and establishes the first settlement in W.A. with troops and convicts.

Faraday publishes \'Principles of electro-magnetic rotation\'

Discovery of Antarctica.

The Battle of Waterloo was fought near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. An Imperial French army under the command of Emperor Napoleon was defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition, comprising an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington combined with a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blcher. It was the culminating battle of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon's last.

Jane Austen wrote \'Pride and Prejudice\'

Birth of Charles Darwin

Beethoven premieres his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy together in Vienna

Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of the French.

World population reaches 1 billion.

Matthew Flinders recommends that the newly discovered country, New Holland, be renamed \'Australia\'

Union Jack becomes the official British flag

Electric light first produced by Sir Humphrey Davy

Herschel discovers infra-red light

Volta makes first electrical battery