- 1953 – Actor and film director, Yahoo Serious is born in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales.
- 1991 – German fraudster and head of the National Safety Council of Australia, John Friedrich suicides at his farm in Sale, Victoria.
- 1999 – The Swiss canyoning disaster takes place at Saxetenbach Gorge near Interlaken in Switzerland. Twenty-one tourists, fourteen of them Australian, are killed.
- 2005 – After 10 years in power Bob Carr resigns as Premier of New South Wales and is replaced by Morris Iemma on 3 August.