1885 James Francis (Frank) Hurley born Sydney, Australia
1911 Joins Australasian Antarctic Expedition, led by Douglas Mawson
1913 Releases film Home of the Blizzard.
1914 Travels around northern Australia with Francis Birtles, making film Into Australia’s Unknown.
1914-16 Joins Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance expedition to the Antarctic.
1917 Becomes an official Australian World War I photographer
1918 Marries Antoinette Thierault-Leighton in Egypt; exhibition of composite photographs in London; returns to Australia.
1919 Identical twins Toni and Adelie born; releases film In The Grip of the Polar Pack-Ice
1920 Flies from Queensland to Sydney with Keith and Ross Smith on the first flight from London.
1921 Travels to Torres Strait and Papua, releases film Pearls and Savages; 3rd daughter Yvonne born.
1922 Returns to Papua; 4th child Frank born.
1923 Releases film With the Headhunters of Unknown Papua, re-released in US as The Lost Tribe; publishes book titled Pearls and Savages
1924 Latest Papua film (renamed Pearls and Savages) screens at London’s Royal Opera House.
1925 Publishes book Argonauts of the South.
1925-26 Makes films The Jungle Woman (in Dutch New Guinea) and The Hound of the Deep (on Thursday Island).
1928 Flies plane from Australia to England; trip ends with a crash on an Athens runway.
1929-31 Joins Mawson’s BANZARE expedition to Antarctic on board Discovery; completes film Southward Ho! with Mawson (later called Siege of the South); becomes chief cameraman at Cinesound Studios, Sydney.
1932 Films Jewel of the Pacific on Lord Howe Island
1933-40 Makes films including Symphony in Steel (on building of Sydney Harbour Bridge), A Nation is Built (celebrating Australia’s 150th anniversary), Fire Guardians, Pageant of Power, Brown Coal to Briquettes, Oasis, Here is Paradise, Treasures of Katoomba; cinematographer on Tall Timbers, The Squatter’s Daughter, Strike Me Lucky, Grandad Rudd, The Silence of Dean Maitland, Lovers and Luggers.
1940-42 Appointed an official Australian photographer in World War II, goes to Middle East.
1943-5 Appointed Director of Army Features and Propaganda for British Government, making films: A Day in the Life of a King, The Holy Land, Road to Russia, Famine Takes Wings.
1947-62 Travels around Australia taking photographs for his Camera Study pictorial books and other publications
1962 Dies at home in Sydney.