- 1863 – James McCulloch, the fifth Premier of Victoria, takes office.
- 1911 – The Royal Military College, Duntroon opened.
- 1949 – A coal strike involving 23,000 miners began. It lasted for seven weeks until Australian military forces were used to break the strike; the first time such a thing had happened in peace-time Australia.
- 1987 – Former federal Liberal Party leader Billy Snedden is found dead from a heart attack in a motel room.
- 2001 – The Intelligence Services Act 2001 introduced into Parliament, providing a legislative basis for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), both of which had been previously established by executive order.