Australian Events

Posted in 1919

  • Brothers Captain Ross Smith and Lieutenant Keith Smith flew from UK to AustraliaAustralia, with Billy Hughes as Prime Minister, has a prominent place at the Paris meeting of nations that decides the fate of the defeated Germany and reshapes the map of Europe and the colonial world.
  • Brothers Ross and Keith Smith and their crew become the first people to fly between England and Australia. The flight takes 27 days and 20 hours in a Vickers Vimy. It earns the brothers a £10,000 prize offered by the government to the first Australian airmen to complete the flight in less than 30 consecutive days before December 31.
  • Nurses with children during the influenza epidemic, MelbourneInfluenza epidemic claims the lives of 11,552 Australians.
  • Jules Archibald bequeaths a sum of money to fund an annual portrait painting competition.