Category: Firsts and Lasts

The first Australian to win an Oscar winner was Ken Hall, a self taught film maker who teamed with a fearless newsreal cameraman during World War II.

In 1966 The Seekers released ‘Georgy Girl’, and became the first Australian music act to top the US charts.

George Goodman was Australia’s first photographer: in the 1840s, the only man licensed to take photos in the colonies.

The first recorded solar eclipse occurred in the ancient city of Ugarit, captured on a clay tablet 3 000 years ago.

Taylor Swift’s first tour of Australia was her first outside of America; a one week run playing nightclubs, a ski resort and a benefit concert at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Canada’s first national park was the outcome of an accidental discovery: three railway workers who stumbled across a natural hot spring in the Rocky Mountains.

The first movie star dog was a Collie named Blain, a canine hero for pioneering British film maker Cecil Hepworth.

Australia’s first recorded music was a novelty song about chooks, recorded by a bootmaker in rural Victoria.

The world’s first video store opened in West Hollywood in 1977. It was the brainchild of a failed actor and former stuntman who would change the entertainment industry.

The first feature length film was made in Melbourne in 1906. Its subject: Australia’s most famous folk hero.