Ned Kelly born Victoria Bitter first sold
Governors of the Australian colonies:
Governor of New South Wales - Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy
Governor of South Australia - Sir Henry Young (term ended 20 December)
Governor of Tasmania - Sir William Denison
Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria - Charles La Trobe; from June Sir Charles Hotham
Governor of Western Australia as a Crown Colony - Captain Charles Fitzgerald
This was a year of intense political agitation by miners on the Victorian goldfields.
4 July - Anti-Chinese riots occur in Victoria, Australia.
5 July - The Mercury was first published in Hobart.
17 October - The Melbourne daily newspaper The Age was first published.
29 November - The Eureka Flag was flown for the first time during the Eureka Stockade rebellion in Ballarat.
3 December - battle suppressing the rebellion at Eureka Stockade
Exploration and settlement
4 January - - Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang discovers the McDonald Islands.
12 September - Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria Charles Hotham opens Flinders Street Station, the first city railway station in Australia.
30 September - The first game of cricket is played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
18 October - Billy Murdoch, regarded as the finest cricket batsman of his day, was born in Sandhurst, Victoria
Richard Thomas Baker
Henry Lefroy
Mungo William MacCallum
William Maloney
George Prendergast
Charles Riley
Edward Sugden
Thomas Waddell
Walter Withers
Edward Wittenoom
2 October – Benjamin Carvosso, first Wesleyan minister to preach in Australia (b. 1789)
George Arthur
Jackey Jackey
