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Sydney Opera House opens
Bennelong Point · Sydney, New South Wales, Australia · 1973-10-20
Sixteen years after Jørn Utzon won the competition — and seven after he resigned from the project — Queen Elizabeth II opened the Sydney Opera House on 20 October 1973 on Bennelong Point. The sails that had been dismissed as unbuildable became the most recognisable building of the twentieth century and a UNESCO site within 34 years, faster than any other modern structure.
The record
| Date | 1973-10-20 |
|---|---|
| Place | Bennelong Point, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Coordinates | -33.8568, 151.2153 (landmark-level precision) |
| Scope | World-historic |
| Sources | Wikipedia |
| Added | 2026-08-14 · source: editors |
Coordinates are given at landmark level. A landmark-level coordinate points at the structure; a city-level one points at the settlement, not at a parcel.
Finding photographs
Every one of these is a search, not a guess: the event is documented, so the pictures exist somewhere. Start here.
- Wikimedia Commons — freely licensed images, with the licence stated on every file. This is the only source we republish from.
- The reference article — its own illustrations, and its citations to archives.
- Image search filtered to reusable licences — useful for tracing which institution holds a picture.
- National and municipal archives of Australia, and the picture desks of newspapers published there at the time.
Check the licence before you reuse anything. A photograph being online, or being old, does not make it free; in most countries a 1960s press photograph is still in copyright.
Footage
Newsreel and archive film of events like this often survives. Search YouTube for this event If you find good footage, send us the link and we will attach it to this page.
Time layers at this place
One place, several moments in time. This location has 10 recorded time layers between 1932 and 1995 — slide through them:
- 1932 — The bridge is opened, and cut in early
- 1934 — Anzac Memorial
- 1942 — Attack on Sydney Harbour
- 1947 — 1947 Sydney hailstorm
- 1971 — The Green Bans in The Rocks
- 1973 — Sydney Opera House opens this page
- 1975 — Sydney Harbour National Park
- 1978 — Sydney Hilton bombing
- 1981 — Sydney Tower opens
- 1995 — Museum of Sydney
Seeded by the editors. This entry was compiled by us from public reference works and is labelled as such, not presented as a reader’s contribution. Sources are listed on the entry. If you know more, or we have it wrong, tell us — corrections are published.
You can add to this page
This entry is a skeleton on purpose. If you were there, if your family was, or if you simply know the place: photographs (yours or ones you have the right to share), comments and corrections to the record above, and observations — what the place was like before, after, what the books get wrong. Everything is read by a person before publication and credited the way you ask.
What readers have added
Nothing yet — this place is waiting for its first memory. The form below takes a date, a story, photographs and links.
Do you know something about Bennelong Point, Sydney, New South Wales?
Old photographs, what your family remembers being on the corner, a shop that is not on any map we have. Contributions are read by a person before anything is published, and we never publish the names of living people.
Nearby in Australia and Oceania
- 1947 Sydney hailstorm (1947)
- The bridge is opened, and cut in early (1932)Sydney, New South Wales
- The Green Bans in The Rocks (1971)Sydney
- Museum of Sydney (1995)
- Sydney Tower opens (1981)Sydney
- Attack on Sydney Harbour (1942)