Category: Firsts and Lasts

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.

The first vaccine was invented to tackle smallpox, a virus that is the single greatest killer humankind has ever faced.

The first Cannes film festival was held in 1939. It was founded to showcase world cinema, and as a rebuke to fascism.