Significant Events in the 1930''s

By laidlawj

  • Phar lap wins the Melbourne Cup

    Phar lap wins the Melbourne Cup

  • Phone line links Perth with the rest of the country

  • Phone line links Perth with the rest of the country

  • United Australia Party wins federal election. Joseph Lyons becomes Prime Minister

  • Nine people die in Gippsland bushfires

  • Habour Bridge Openes

  • Phar Lap dies after being poisoned

  • Lang Labor Government dismissed by NSW Governor

  • Australian swimmer Claire Dennis wins gold in Olympic 200 metres breastroke in world record time 3 mins 6.3 secs

  • Inaurguration of the ABC by Prime Minister Joseph Lyons

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

  • First traffic lights installed in Sydney

  • Federal Government tells NT police to stop chaining Aboriginal prisoners

  • 75 feared dead after cyclone strikes near Cape Tribulation

  • Victoria celebrates centenary

  • Qantas Empire Airways plane leaves for Siingapore on first scheduled international flight

  • At least 140 drown after a cyclone batters the pearling fleet

  • Chef Bert Sachse creates the pavlova dessert in honour of ballerina Anna Pavlova

  • The giant cane toad, Bufo marinus, is introduced into Queensland to control the grey-back beetle which attacks sugar cane

  • Special Labor Party conference re-elects former NSW Premier Jack Lang to the party after a 5-year expulsion

  • Submarine telephone cable between Tasmania and the mainland begins operation

  • Last Tasmanian Tiger (thylacine) dies in Hobart Zoo

  • Opening of the Hume Dam, the biggest water storage system in the southern hemisphere

  • Massive explosion in state coal mine kills 13, the worst mining disaster in Victorian history

  • 17 Aborigines travel 650 miles on foot to see the Darwin Picture Theatre. It is their first encounter with white society

  • First regular airmail service between Australia and America begins

  • Australia celebrates 150 years of settlemen

  • Freak 35 ft high wave at Bondi Beach kills 5 people. 200 bathers saved by lifesavers

  • 19 drown in Sydney Harbour after overcrowded launch Rodney capsizes

  • Assisted immigration from Britain reintroduced

  • 18 people die after Australia's worst air disaster when an ANA Douglas DC2 crashes in the Dandenong Ranges due to severe fog

  • Direct radio-telephone link established between Canberra and Washington

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

  • Under pressure from Robert Menzies' government, waterside workers agree to load pig iron for Japan

  • Robert Gordon Menzies becomes Prime Minister

  • Australia follows Britain and declares war on Germany

  • Canberra: Prime Minister Menzies announces a new War Cabinet