1834 – Henty family establish first long-term European settlement in Victoria at Portland
1835 – John Batman 'buys' the 2,430 km2 that Melbourne would be founded on from the local Aboriginal nation, the Wurundjeri. The Batman Deed is now widely recognised to be more of a treaty than a sale.
1839 – Third inner-city land sale. Quarrying of bluestone began out of the Melbourne Corporation Quarry at Clifton Hill.
1840 – First petition for the separation of Port Phillip District from New South Wales drafted by Henry Fyshe Gisborne and presented to Governor George Gipps.
1878 – Xavier College, in Kew, is founded after the increased need of boarding space for the oldest Jesuit School in Melbourne, St Pat's.
1878 – Ruyton Girls' School, also in Kew is founded by Charlotte Anderson. Its land includes the heritage listed Henty House, built by the seminal Hentys of Sussex.
1957 – Plot ratio height limits introduced to CBD (dependent upon floor space and light angles), plazas and open space. By laws introduced for compulsory carspace for all new city buildings. 1.45 m setbacks for 'Little' streets introduced to widen footpaths.
2002 – Controversial Melbourne 2030 planning policy introduced, aimed to increase population in designated 'activity centres' and curb urban sprawl, promises to increase public transport usage to 20% of motorised trips by 2020
2018 – Major construction begins on the Metro Tunnel, a 9-km underground rail tunnel through the CBD and the biggest public transport project since the City Loop
2018 – 170,000 people march through the city in response to unfair working conditions and low wages[9]
2019 – 300 Anti-Fascists and 150 Neo-Nazis clash at St Kilda beach[10]
2020 – Melbourne is hit the hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia and as a result Melbourne becomes one of the most locked-down cities in the world
2021 - Local newspapers try to claim Melbourne becomes the most locked-down city in the world.[11] There is no evidence for this, and cities such as Leicester in England suffered much worse lockdowns of over a year,[12] while Peru maintained strict controls for far longer. Deaths from COVID19 in Melbourne were very low compared to Europe and the Americas in 2020-21. Minor far right 'cooker' protests against strict lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations in the construction industry broke out throughout the city during the second half of the year. See COVID-19 protests in Australia
^Lewis, Miles (1995). Melbourne the city's history and development, 2nd ed. City of Melbourne.
^New South Wales Government Gazette, 12 April 1837 (No.271), p. 303.
^Melbourne the city's history and development, 2nd ed pg 5, Miles Lewis, 1995
^Charles Augustus FitzRoy. An Act for Regulating Buildings and Party Walls and for Preventing Mischiefs by Fire in the City of Melbourne. Melbourne: (Government of New South Wales, 1849).
^Burgmann, Verity and Meredith (1998). Green Bans, Red Union: Environmental Activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers' Federation. pp. 50–51.
^Ness, Immanuel (2014). New Forms of Worker Organisation: The Syndicalist and Autonomist Restoration of Class Struggle Unionism.
^"Melbourne tram dispute and lockout 1990 - anarcho-syndicalism in practice". libcom.org. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
^Lahey, Tim Colebatch and Kate (22 September 2009). "Melbourne's population hits 4 million". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 11 July 2019.
^"170,000 Shut Down Melbourne's CBD To Demand Better Pay & Work Conditions". Pedestrian TV. 23 October 2018. Retrieved 14 January 2019.
^"St Kilda beach racist protests: Far right clashes with anti-fascists". www.news.com.au. Retrieved 14 January 2019.