Tips for finding when small events happened
The more famous the event the easier it will be to find out when it happened. Sometimes more obscure events can be harder to find. Often we can remember past events but they usually seem more recent than they are.
Online sources are a very easy and effective way of locating dates for events.
This is an excellent online index to Australia events. It is available within the Library. It is also available offsite to registered Victorian users. It is listed under History within the Informit suite of databases.
Auschron covers a very large range of events reported in newspapers since European settlement. Entries include an outline of the event and references to newspaper reports of the event.
It is the most comprehensive chronology available of Australia's European history .
This is an online continuation of the Biography and Local History indexes. (See In house indexes box at right). The Australiana Index has been compiled by Library staff over a number of years and has a Victorian focus.
It contains references to published material, such as newspapers, journals and books, as well as references to in-house files of various types. It includes references to material about people, organisations, places and things.
Do a keyword search on the Internet. This can be a good way to find dates and detail, particularly for recent events.
Doing a search of Wikipedia will retrieve more focussed results than a general search engine.
However Wikipedia is often best searched via a search engine such as Google. If you do this include the term wikipedia in your search.
For instance search +"Newcastle earthquake" +wikipedia using a search engine. The + signs mean both terms will be included in the results and the "quotation marks" interpret terms as a phrase. The results of this search will list this site first.
Wikipedia also has specific chronologies or timelines for Australia.
Timeline of Australian history
See also the 'Newspapers' box on this page for online newspaper databases.
Search full-text scholarly journals on all subjects published from 1700 up until 1–5 years ago. Articles published before 1923 in United States journals, or before 1870 elsewhere, are freely accessible.
Newspapers are a wonderful source of daily events, and relatively obscure events.
Events that were moderately famous for a day and then forgotten may appear in newspapers.
Indexes to Australian newspapers are sporadic and long periods are not indexed.
Below is a brief guide to finding information in newspapers. Also try the research guide How to find items in newspapers.
There are a number of newspaper databases available through the Library. Many of these can be accessed offsite to registered Victorian users.
Proquest Australia & New Zealand newsstand
Historic Australian newspapers
The Age annual : a political & statistical register of the colony of Victoria.
Other online indexes and full text newspapers
Often the best way to find information on an event is to use a search engine.
However there are also many online and inprint resources relating to events or occurrences in specific areas. Some examples are hereunder.
Technology in Australia is an online version of a comprehensive book that lists developments in technology during Australia's European history.
For instance if you wanted to know when the Cactoblastis moth was introduced to control prickly pear you could peruse the index or use the search function.
You would find it was introduced, with great success, in 1925. It destroyed all prickly pear in NSW and Queensland within ten years.
There are many portals to information on different sports.
If you want information about Australian football games and players try the AFL site. This contains links to all AFL teams which will include detail of players and major events.
The Cricinfo site has also detailed cricket information, both international and domestic. It includes all Australian test players and test matches.
Try the Australian culture portal for a wide range of online information about music, film, theatre, literature and other aspects of Australia's cultural history. The site is no longer active and has been archived to the Pandora Web archive. It does carry a lot of good information though.
The Library has created Local History and Biography files that contain information on mainly Victorian events.
These files include sometimes obscure information not available elsewhere.
Access these files via the microfiche indexes in the La Trobe Information Centre off the Domed Reading Room at the State Library.
See also the Australiana Index on this page.
Printed chronologies usually list events for each year.
The detail included in a chronology depends on how wide a period it covers and how large it is.
Events might be listed for each years, months and days.
