History of Western Australia - State of Australia - Major Events Since 1945

Major Events Since 1945

• 1946: Over 800 Aboriginal workers took part in the 1946 Pilbara strike, the first such kind of action taken by Indigenous Australians.
• 1947: Western Australia enters the country's domestic cricket competition, the Sheffield Shield. Though Western Australia only entered on a probationary basis, it managed to win the shield in its first season.
• 1949: The worst aircraft accident in Western Australia occurred when the Douglas DC-3 Fitzroy crashed after take-off from Guildford aerodrome, killing all 18 people on board.
• 1950: The worst civil aircraft accident in Australian history occurred when all 29 people on board the Douglas DC-4 Amana died after it crashed near York on a flight from Perth to Adelaide.
• 1952: On 3 October the first nuclear bomb was exploded on Australian soil at the Montebello Islands. It was part of Operation Hurricane, Britain's first ever nuclear weapon test.
• 1961: In arguably Western Australia's worst bushfire, many small communities were destroyed including 132 houses in Dwellingup. Fortunately there were no fatalities, but 800 people were left homeless.
• 1961: Minerals boom begins with legislation allowing bauxite mining in jarrah forests. The economy is bolstered over the next two decades by nickel mines around Kalgoorlie and iron ore mines in the north-west.
• 1964: Eric Edgar Cooke was the last person hanged in Western Australia.
• 1964: On 31 December, Donald Campbell broke the world water speed record in the Bluebird K7 on Lake Dumbleyung. He reached 442 km/h. Campbell died in the same vehicle in 1967 in a later record attempt in England.
• 1967: Aboriginal people were recognized as Australian citizens with the right to vote
• 1968: On 14 October, the town of Meckering was almost destroyed in Australia's second worst earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 on the Richter Scale.
• 1968: On 31 December, all 26 people on board MacRobertson Miller Airlines Flight 1750 from Perth to Port Hedland died when the aircraft, a Vickers Viscount, crashed near Port Hedland.
• 1970: The Indian Pacific train completed its first journey by rail across the continent from Sydney to Perth. Though the transcontinental railway had been complete since 1917, this is the first time one train could make the journey uninterrupted by gauge changes.
• 1979: The NASA space station Skylab crashed in the remote south eastern part of the state. Places like Rawlinna and Balladonia received international attention.
• 1979: On 2 June 1979 there was a significant earthquake just east of Cadoux.
• 1979: WAY 1979 and the publishing of the Sesquicentenary Celebrations Series (Western Australia) by the celebrations committee and Government.
• 1983: Beginnings of WA Inc. Government deals with private businessmen lead to the loss of $600 million in public money and eventually a Royal Commission.