1851 in Australia 1851 in Australia 1851 in Australia was a watershed year. It saw the start of the Australian gold rushes with significant gold discoveries in both New South Wales (near Bathurst) in February and Victoria in July. As a result of the Gold Rushes, the European population of Victoria increased from 97,489 in 1851 to 538,628 in 1861 and the population of NSW increased from 197,265 in 1851 to 350,860 in 1861. Victoria became a self-governing colony. Sentiment in the eastern Australian colonies moved decisively against penal transportation leading to the end of transportation to Tasmania in 1853. Melbourne's major suburb/satellite
San Francisco Fire of 1851 San Francisco Fire of 1851 The San Francisco Fire of 1851 (May 3–4, 1851) was a catastrophic conflagration that destroyed as much as three-quarters of San Francisco, California. During the height of the California Gold Rush, between December 1849 and June 1851, San Francisco endured a sequence of seven bad fires, of which this was the sixth and by far the most damaging. In terms of property value, it did three times as much damage as the next most destructive of the seven fires. Around 11 pm on the night of May 3, 1851, a fire (possibly arson) broke out