Australian tennis player Rod Laver is the first to win the Grand Slam a second time

Australian author David Malouf is first published as a poet, with his collection Bicycle and Other Poems

Australian feminist Germaine Greer publishes The Female Eunuch as a wake-up call to women

Australian tennis player Margaret Court achieves the grand slam in singles, adding it to her previous grand slam in doubles

19-year-old Aboriginal tennis player Evonne Goolagong wins the singles title at Wimbledon

Aborigines pitch a Tent Embassy on Australia Day outside parliament in Canberra to highlight political injustices

Gough Whitlam is Australia's prime minister after Labor party victory

The Sydney Opera House opens with a performance by Australian Opera of Prokofiev's War and Peace

Patrick White is the first Australian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature

Cyclone Tracy devastates the Australian city of Darwin on Christmas Day, destroying 80% of the domestic buildings

There is political turmoil in Australia after the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, dismisses prime minister Gough Whitlam

Australian governor-general Sir John Kerr appoints Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser as caretaker prime minister

Malcolm Fraser becomes the Australian prime minister, winning the first of three general election victories

Stolen Generations, by Peter Read, reveals the scandal of Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their parents

Australian novelist Thomas Keneally publishes Schindler's Ark and wins the Booker Prize

Australian bowler Dennis Lillee's total of 351 Test wickets sets a new record

Peter Carey publishes Illywhacker, a novel narrated by a 139-year-old Australian

Ayers Rock is returned to the Mutitjulu people and given its Aboriginal name, Uluru

Robert Hughes describes the penal system of colonial Australia in The Fatal Shore

Australian author Peter Carey's novel Oscar and Lucinda wins the Booker Prize

The Mabo Case in Australia establishes Aboriginal common law land rights

Liberal leader John Howard heads the winning coalition in Australia's general election

In the Wik Decision the Australian High Court gives strong support to Aboriginal land rights

The Australian report Bringing Them Home confirms widespread forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their parents