Portal:Australia/Anniversaries/April/April 20
Appearance
- 1770 – HM Bark Endeavour, and her captain, James Cook, first sight the eastern coast of the continent of Australia.
- 1836 – John Batman (pictured) and his family arrive at Port Phillip, in present-day Victoria, and settle on Batman Hill.
- 1908 – Forty-four people are killed and 400 injured after two trains collide at the Sunshine railway station, the junction of the Ballarat and Bendigo railway lines.
- 1919 – Richard Hillary, future Royal Australian Air Force pilot and author of the autobiographical The Last Enemy, is born in Sydney, New South Wales.
- 1954 – In the Petrov Affair, Evdokia Petrova seeks political asylum after the plane carrying her back to the Soviet Union lands at Darwin, with her escorts disarmed by Commonwealth police.