Timeline of major crimes in Australia

Timeline of major crimes in Australia

1800s

1820s

• September 13, 1828 - Robbers break into the vault of the Bank of Australasia in Sydney and take off with a loot of various nominations - first bank robbery in Australia.

1830s

• 9 June, 1838 - Myall Creek Massacre

1850s

• 28 November - 3 December 1854, - Eureka Stockade Gold prospecters stage uprising against government leading to armed conflict; 22 miners and 6 soldiers killed

1860s

• 30 June 1861, - Lambing Flat riots White miners riot against Chinese immigrants, murdering several (numbers unknown)
• 17 October 1861, - Cullin La Ringo massacre in Central Queensland. Nineteen white settlers killed, the largest massacre of whites by Aborigines in Australian history.

1870s

• October 1878, - Stringybark Creek Massacre - Victorian bushrangers the Kelly Gang ambush and kill three police officers at Stringybark Creek

1880s

• 27 June 1880, - Ned Kelly's Last Stand - The Kelly Gang hold the town of Glenrowan, Victoria hostage at the town's inn in an attempt to ambush police. The attempt fails and a seige ensues on the 28th, during which three members of the gang and at least one young boy are killed, and Ned Kelly is captured.

1890s

• 26 December 1898, - Gatton murders - Three members of the same family are sexually molested and murdered near the town of Gatton, Queensland (unsolved)

1900s

1920s

• August 1928 - Coniston massacre - Northern Territory police constable William Murray leads a series of raids on Aboriginal tribes in response to the murder of a local dingo trapper (official death toll 31, but believed to be much higher)

1930s

• 1 Sep, 1934 - Pyjama Girl murder - The body of a woman found beaten and half burnt in a culvert in southern New South Wales
• 1932-1934 - Caledon Bay crisis - A series of rapes, murders and retaliatory voilence involving Japanese, Aboriginals and white Australians in the Northern Territory
• 1935 - The Shark Arm Case - The arm of murdered man James Smith is disgorged by a tiger shark being held in a public exhibit in Sydney (unsolved)

1940s

• 3 May-4 November, 1942 - "Brown Out" serial murders. American Soldier Eddie Leonski murders three women in Melbourne, Victoria

1960s

• 7 July, 1960 - Graeme Thorne kidnapping - 8-year old boy kidnapped and murdered days after his parents win the Opera House Lottery
• 11 January, 1965 - Wanda Beach Murders - Two teenage girls murdered on a southern Sydney beach (unsolved)
• 26 January, 1966 - Beaumont children disappearance - Three young children disappear from Glenelg Beach in Adelaide, South Australia (unsolved)

1970s

• 6 October, 1972 - Faraday School kidnapping - teacher and 6 pupils kidnapped for $1 million ransom in Victoria.
• 15 November, 1972 - First aircraft hijacking in Australia. Ansett Airlines flight 232 from Adelaide to Alice Springs with 28 passengers and a crew of 4. Followed by gun battle at Alice Springs Airport where the hijacker Miloslav Hrabinec shot himself. He died later that day.
• March 8, 1973 - Whiskey Au Go Go fire, 15 killed in arson attack on nightclub.
• 17 July, 1977 - Donald Mackay disappearance - Anti-drugs campaigner from Griffith, New South Wales disappears, presumed murdered (unsolved)
• 13 February, 1978 - Sydney Hilton bombing - Three killed by bomb blast outside CHOGM in Sydney. Ananda Marga members imprisoned but later pardoned and released
• April 25, 1978 - discovery of the Truro murders

1980s

• 17 August, 1980 - Azaria Chamberlain disappearance - A two-month old baby disappears from a tent in a camp site at Uluru, Northern Territory. Mother Lindy Chamberlain claims the child is taken by a dingo and is later jailed for her murder but eventually acquitted (unsolved)
• August 18, 1983 - Douglas Crabbe rams his 25 ton Mack truck into a hotel in Yulara, killing 5 people.
• 31 January, 1984 - A man holds up the Commonwealth Bank in Pitt Street, Sydney, and is later shot dead on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
• 14 August, 1984 - Fine Cotton Affair - A syndicate of trainers and bookmakers substitutes one horse for another at a Brisbane horse race
• September, 1984 - Milperra massacre - Two rival bikie gangs stage a shoot-out in a car park of a south-western Sydney hotel. 7 people die
• 2 February, 1986 - Anita Cobby murder - Sydney nurse Anita Cobby is raped, brutalised and murdered by a gang lead by John Travers
• 27 March, 1986 - Russell Street bombing
• 19 August, 1986 - Samantha Knight disappearance - 9 year Samantha Knight disappears from a Bondi street
• 8 December, 1987 - Queen Street massacre
• 8 September, 1988 - Janine Balding murder - 21 year old Janine Balding is abducted, raped and murdered by five homeless youths in Sydney's west
• 12 October, 1988 - Walsh Street police shootings - Two police officers executed in Melbourne (unsolved)
• 10 January, 1989 - Colin Winchester murder - The Assistant Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police is shot to death outside his home
• November, 1989 - Leigh Leigh murder - Newcastle teenager raped and murdered on a Newcastle beach
• 1989-1990 - Granny Murders - John Wayne Glover murders six elderly women across Sydney's north shore

1990s

Port Arthur Prison Colony, site of the Port Arthur massacre

• 11 July 1990 - Sarah MacDiarmid Age 23 - disappearance and likely murder at Kananook railway station in Melbourne, Victoria. Unsolved
• 1991 - Karmein Chan murder
• 4 July, 1991 - Victor Chang - World-renown heart surgeon Victor Chang is murdered in Sydney during an extortion attempt
• 17 August, 1991 - Strathfield massacre - Wade Frankum murders seven then kills himself in a Sydney shopping centre
• 1988-1992 - backpacker murders - Ivan Milat murders seven tourists and buries them in Belanglo State Forest
• 5 September, 1994 - John Newman murder - Sydney politician assassinated outside his home
• 1993 - The Frankston Serial Killer, Paul Denyer, murders 3 women before capture
• 1996 - Tjandamurra O'Shane is set alight in school playground in Cairns, Queensland.
• 28 April, 1996 - Port Arthur massacre - Martin Bryant kills 35 at Port Arthur, Tasmania.
• 15 June, 1997 - Jaidyn Leskie murder - toddler murdered and found dumped in a dam near Moe, Victoria.
• 16 January, 1998 - Alphonse Gangitano murder, Melbourne underworld killing
• 1992 - 1999 - Snowtown murders - 8 bodies found in barrels in a disused bank vault in Snowtown, South Australia. 2 more bodies later discovered in a suburban Adelaide yard
• 20 May, 1999 - police officers executed in Moorabbin Police murders

2000s

2000

• Winter, 2000 - Sydney gang rapes - A series of apparently racially-motivated gang rapes against teenage girls sweeps Sydney's west

2001

• 14 July, 2001 - British tourists Joanne Lees and Peter Falconio are assaulted near Barrow Creek, Northern Territory by Bradley John Murdoch. Falconio is never found and Murdoch is subsequently found guilty of his murder.

2002

• 4 April, 2002 - Society Murders. Matthew Wales murders his mother Margaret Wales-King and stepfather Paul King and buries them in a shallow grave in Victoria.

• 21 October, 2002 - Monash University shooting

2003

• April, 2003, Pong Su incident

2004

• 14 February, 2004 - 2004 Redfern riots - Aboriginal youths riot against police in response to the death of 17-year old TJ Hickey. Hickey had accidentally impaled himself on a fence while fleeing police he mistakenly believed were pursusing him.
• 23 March, 2004 - Sharpe family murders, Husband murdered his family with a spear gun.

2005

• 11 February, 2005 - Maria Korp murder - Melbourne woman found in a coma in the boot of her car. Her husband and his lover are subsequently charged with her murder after Mrs Korp's life-support is switched off.
• 26 February - 1 March, 2005 - Macquarie Fields riots - residents of the south western Sydney suburb riot in response to the deaths of two youths during a police pursuit. The youths were passengers in a stolen car being driven by a known criminal. Residents believed police were unfairly persecuting local youth
• 1 June, 2005 - Indonesian embassy bioterrorism hoax
• November 2005 - Sydney teenager Lauren Huxley is bashed and set alight in her home
• December 2005 - Sydney race riots - rioting by European Australians and people of Middle Eastern origin directed against each other sparked by the reported bashing of Surf Life Savers the previous week by several individuals of "middle-eastern appearance"; retaliatory and counter-retaliatory violence continues for two weeks.

2006

• 31 January, 2006 - Youbert Hormozi murder - Two 14-year old girls rob and murder a disabled taxi driver in Sydney's west
• 26 June, 2006 - Canning Vale murder - 8 year-old Sofia Rodrigez-Urrutia-Shu is raped and murdered in a suburban Perth shopping mall by Dante Wyndham Arthurs

See also

• Crime in Australia
• List of Australian criminals
• List of disasters in Australia by death toll