First arrival of people from
south-east Asia.

At two sites in Arnhem in the Northern Territory, Nauwalabila and Malakunanja, people use stone tools and red ochre, probably to prepare pigments for rock painting or body decoration.

People occupy the central Australian deserts at sites such as Puritjarra and Lake Mungo.

A man from the Lake Mungo area is buried in a shallow grave, and liberally covered with powdered red ochre. This is one of the earliest known burials of distinctly modern people, Homo sapiens.

A woman is buried in Lake Mungo, providing the earliest evidence of ritual cremation in the world.

People using jewellery drop beads at sites in Western Australia.

People use grindstones at sites such as Cuddie Springs in western New South Wales.

Aborigines are living at Malangangerr in Arnhem Land and on Cape York are using edge-ground tools.

Deep in caves under the Nullarbor Plains at Koonalda, South Australia, Aboriginal people are mining flint and leaving grooved designs on the cave walls.

Grindstones are being used
for hard fruits, seeds and vegetables and in ochre preparation in Arnhem Land.

At the end of the glacial period the seas rise, separating Tasmania from the mainland.

People in north-eastern Australia begin to manufacture new stone tool forms which look like large pen-knife blades.

People are using islands off the Western Australian (Kimberley) and Queensland coasts, using canoes to cross water barriers.

Aboriginal people at Wyrie Swamp in southeast South Australia are using returning boomerangs to catch waterfowl.

Several people are buried in different positions in the Kow Swamp, suggesting complex mortuary rituals. They have more robust bone structures than those found at Lake Mungo.

People in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory begin making stone points.

The earliest visible evidence of Aboriginal beliefs connected with the Rainbow Serpent, in the form of painted images in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.

Standardised stone tools begin to be made and used in large numbers across much of mainland Australia.

Aboriginal people living on the tropical coast build large shell mounds.

Large trade networks transport stone axes across southern Australia.

Dutch documents record the journeys of Macassan trepangers (those seeking sea-cucumber) to ‘Marege’, as the Macassans called Australia.

Spanish mariner, Luis Vaez de Torres, becomes the first European to travel through what is now called the Torres Strait. The Duyfken, under the command of the Dutchman Willem Jansz, leaves the island of Banda (Indonesia) and he maps the northern coast of Australia.

Dutchman Willem van Colster’s exploratory voyage is the first recorded European contact with Aboriginal people in Arnhem Land.

Lieutenant James Cook claims possession of the whole east coast of Australia by raising the British flag at Possession Island in the Torres Strait, just off the northern tip of Cape York Peninsula.

Captain Arthur Phillip raises the Union Jack at Sydney Cove and white colonisation begins. The Aboriginal population is estimated to be more than 750,000, across the continent.

Less than a year after the arrival of the First Fleet, over half the Aboriginal population living in the Sydney basin have died from smallpox.

Young Eora man, Bennelong, is captured, lives with Governor Arthur Phillip in Sydney at Government House and taken to Britain in 1792. He becomes the first true mediator between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups.

Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania) is colonised, and several violent clashes ensue.

Conflict between non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal people in the Bathurst district of central western NSW becomes so serious that martial law is proclaimed from August to December.

In what has become known as the ‘Black Line’ Governor Arthur tries unsuccessfully to drive all the remaining Aboriginal people in eastern Van Diemen’s Land on to the Tasman Peninsula. It is spectacularly unsuccessful in rounding up people but is a precursor to Aboriginal people later accepting George Augustus Robinson’s suggestion to move to a Flinders Island settlement, before final repatriation to Tasmania in 1847.

Western Australia’s Governor Stirling leads twenty-five mounted police against Aboriginal people following attacks on the white invaders, British colonisation of Western Australia having begun in 1829. Official records show fourteen Aboriginal people are shot in what’s now called the ‘Battle of Pinjarra’; Aboriginal testimonies suggest far more were shot.

On the banks of the Merri Creek (today’s Northcote suburb of Melbourne) John Batman claims eight clan leaders of what he called the Dutigullar tribe sign a treaty for two tracts of land totalling approximately 243,000 hectares. It is not recognised by Governor Bourke. Batman offers blankets, knives, mirrors, tomahawks, scissors, clothing and flour in return. Today’s scholars dispute that people who have never held a pen, nor practised writing, signed the document.

The Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Aborigines of the British Settlements (North America, Africa, Australasia) concludes that local legislatures are ‘unfit’ to exercise jurisdiction over Aboriginal peoples and their lands. The colonisers ignore the report, and continue to claim Indigenous land as their own.

The first Aboriginal Protectorate was established for Port Philip in Victoria.

At Myall Creek near Inverell in NSW, twenty-eight Aboriginal people are shot by twelve non-Aboriginal men. Seven of the murderers are hung in December and there is public outrage that European men should be convicted for the murder of Aboriginal Australians.

NSW native police troopers are hired and brought to Queensland to track and kill wanted Aboriginal people with whom they have no kinship or alliance, and to help open up the land for settlement.

The colony of Victoria
is established.

The Aboriginal Protection Act 1869 is passed in Victoria, giving the Board for the Protection of Aborigines an extraordinary level of control over Aboriginal people’s lives. Subsequently, acts are created in other states.

The London Missionary Society, led by Rev. Samuel MacFarlane, lands on Erub (Darnley) Island in the Torres Strait.

The Overland Telegraph line connects Adelaide to Darwin and cuts through the middle of Aboriginal land.

Bunuba man, Jandamarra, a skilled stockman who worked with the police, chooses his people over the colonisers. He leads an armed insurgency in the Kimberley. An outlaw to some, a hero to others, his guerrilla war against police and pastoralists lasts for three years.

The peoples of the Great Sandy Desert experience their first contact with white settlers when Canning’s survey team travel 2000 kilometres from Wiluna in Western Australia, surveying the desert and in search of water. It becomes known as the Canning Stock Route.

The Aborigines Ordinance
in the Northern Territory combines the 1910 Act (SA) and the 1911 Ordinance (Cth), giving
the Chief Protector wide-ranging powers over Aboriginal people.

Aboriginal people are murdered by police following the spearing of a pastoralist in what’s now called the Forrest River Massacre. The 1927 Royal Commission to Inquire into Alleged Killing and Burning of Bodies of Aborigines in the East Kimberly is established. Two policemen are charged but the case is dropped due to lack of evidence. Subsequently, governments are pressured to improve the circumstances of Aboriginal people.

The West Australian state government declares central Perth a prohibited area for Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people could only enter with a ‘native pass’ which was issued by the Commissioner of Native Affairs. It remains in place for decades.

Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory is declared an Aboriginal reserve.

Darwin is bombed by the Japanese and many Aboriginal people are relocated in ‘control camps’, with restrictions placed on their movement. In Arnhem Land, Aboriginal people are recruited into the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit to defend against the anticipated Japanese invasion.

Aboriginal people who served in World War II gain the right to enrol to vote under the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

The first of three British nuclear tests is conducted at Emu Field in South Australia, leaving many Aboriginal people suffering from radiation sickness.

The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines (FCAA) develops from a meeting held in Adelaide, later to be known as the first in a series of twenty annual conferences. Its
goal was to achieve ‘equal citizens’ rights’ for Aboriginal Australians.

It changes its name to
Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in 1964. Joe McGinness is the first Indigenous President.

The Commonwealth Electoral Act is amended to give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the right to enrol to vote in Commonwealth elections. Enrolling was voluntary, but voting once enrolled was compulsory.

Indigenous people in Queensland finally gain the right to enrol to vote in State elections.

The Commonwealth government signs the International Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

A referendum is held in
May to change clauses in the Federal Constitution which discriminate against Aboriginal people. Nearly 91 per cent of Australians vote ‘yes’ for change. As a result, Indigenous people are included in the Census (change to s.127) and the Commonwealth government is given the power to legislation on behalf of Aboriginal people (change to s.51).

Larrakia people ‘sit-in’ on Bagot Road, Darwin in a protest against the theft of their land.

The Aboriginal Heritage Act is declared in Western Australia.

The Whitlam Government freezes all applications for mining and exploration on Commonwealth Aboriginal reserves.

The Aboriginal Lands Trust is established in South Australia by the Aboriginal Affairs Planning Authority Act 1972. It consists of Aboriginal representatives and controls reserves, leases and freehold land.

Mr Justice Woodward of the Aboriginal Land Commission delivers his first report, emphasising Aboriginal people’s right to prevent mining on their land, and signalling a new approach to Aboriginal land rights.

The World Council of Indigenous People is founded.

The Aboriginal Land Fund Commission is established to buy land for Aboriginal groups across Australia.

The Senate unanimously pass a resolution put by Senator Bonner which acknowledges prior Indigenous ownership of Australia, and provides compensation for dispossession of land.

The Racial Discrimination Act is passed by the Whitlam Government. It overrides state and territory legislation and makes racial discrimination unlawful.

Aboriginal law and land rights are finally recognised in the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. Recognition of land ownership is extended to 11,000 Aboriginal people.

Mining agreement (Ranger Uranium Project, section 44 agreement) made with the traditional owners and the Commonwealth, Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act.

The Warnarrwarnarr-Barranyi (Borroloola No. 2) people’s claim to land commences hearing. Aboriginal Land Commissioner Justice Gray publishes his report and recommendations in 1996. A ‘repeat claim’, it is considered the first and longest-lasting land claim in Australia’s history.

The Northern Territory Aboriginal Sacred Sites Ordinance is passed, instituting prosecution for trespass and desecration
of Aboriginal sites.

International attention is drawn to Aboriginal land rights when Aboriginal people from around Australia travel to Western Australia’s Noonkanbah to help the Yungnogora people fight to stop the Amax mining company from drilling on their land.

The National Federation of Land Councils is formed, giving a national voice to the land rights movement.

The Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act (SA) is passed and a large area of the State is returned to the Pitjantjatjara people.

Aborigines at Ntaria (Hermannsburg mission),
in Central Australia are granted freehold title.

Aboriginal man John Pat dies in Roebourne jail in Western Australia. It is the first death in custody to be widely protested, and leads eventually to the appointment of Justice Muirhead to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.

A joint delegation of Land Councils from the Northern Territory and the states visit Parliament House Canberra, to protest against the proposed amendments to the Northern Territory’s Aboriginal Land Rights Act and the inadequate provisions in Prime Minister Hawke’s visions of ‘Uniform National Land Rights’.

Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock) is handed back to its traditional owners.

The Western Australian Government introduces its Aboriginal Land Tenure Bill but it is defeated in Parliament.

Voting becomes compulsory for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory elections.

Tens of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and some non-Indigenous Australians march through the streets of Sydney on 26 January to celebrate two hundred years of survival, while many non-Indigenous Australians commemorate the bicentenary of the colonisation of the country.

The Barunga Statement of national Aboriginal political objectives is issued to the federal government. Written on bark, it is presented to Prime Minister RJL Hawke. He responds favourably to the suggestion of a treaty with Indigenous people, but this is never realised.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) is established by the federal government, replacing the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

Legislation providing for land rights is passed through the Legislative Assembly in Queensland.

It does not match the standards set in the Northern Territory. Land rights legislation for Tasmanian Aboriginal people is rejected by the upper house.

Prime Minster Paul Keating makes his ‘Redfern Park’ speech at the launch of the International Year of the World’s Indigenous People, in which he acknowledges past wrongs.

The United Nations Year of Indigenous Peoples is celebrated throughout the world. Second World Indigenous Youth Conference held in Darwin, Northern Territory.

Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Robert Tickner, places a 25 year ban on the construction of the Hindmarsh Island Bridge, after a group of Ngarrindgeri women claim the land is sacred, but details cannot be publicly revealed. The 1995 Hindmarsh Island Royal Commission finds that claims of ‘secret women’s business’ are a fabrication. The later 2001 Federal Court judgment finds that there was no fabrication of ‘secret women’s business’.

The Australian government announce a dramatic intervention into some Northern Territory Aboriginal communities in response to the Little Children Are Sacred Report. The recommendations of the report are not heeded, and the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Act 2007 is passed, and sections of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 are repealed.

Against the recommendations of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) review, the Australian government continues the Northern Territory intervention for a further twelve months, with some changes