Anniversary day? What's that?! Well, if you tuned in to 2SER Breakfast with Tim Higgins this morning you would have heard Lisa explaining that Anniversary Day was the original name for Australia Day. Yes, that's right, 26 January - the date that the First Fleet settled into Sydney Cove and raised the flag. Our Aboriginal brothers and sisters call it Invasion Day or Survival Day. The Sydney Morning Herald declared in 1848:

Most countries and colonies have their peculiar annual rejoicings, but we know of none where a greater abandonment to pleasure and diversion is evinced than in Sydney on the 26th of January.

OK so this might be an exaggeration. But it does capture the spirit of how Sydneysiders celebrated Anniversary Day throughout the 19th century. The celebration has always been a bit fraught with evocations of the penal colony, convict origins, invasion. For the other Australian colonies, it was just the birthday of New South Wales, not the celebration of a nation. Despite these debates in the papers throughout the nineteenth century, the majority of Sydneysiders just enjoyed a public holiday in the summer. A day of relaxation and good times. The first regular official event was the Anniversary sailing regatta on Sydney Harbour. This started in 1837, and continues today. In time, enterprising publicans and pleasure ground proprietors provided a wide range of Anniversary entertainment, incidental to the regatta. Picnics around the harbour at pleasure grounds were popular, particularly group excursions. Anniversary Day horse races were held at Homebush in the 1840s. Interclub cricket matches and organised athletic sports were popular too. Thousands watched the hammer-throwing, and the foot, pony and velocipede [bicycle] races at the Albert Ground, Redfern, in January 1869. In the 1880s and 1890s Moore Park's Zoological Gardens also drew large Anniversary crowds. Federation in 1901 brought a more profound sense of nationhood, but it wasn't until 1935 that all the Australian states and territories use the name 'Australia Day' to mark the 26th January. And it was not until extremely recently, 1994, that the states and territories began to celebrate Australia Day consistently as a public holiday on that date. What are you doing on Anniversary Day? Lisa is going along to Yabun, or Survival Day celebrations in Victoria Park with the Aboriginal community. We all love a public holiday but this one has lots historical and cultural baggage. Whatever you do on the 26th January, spare a moment for the history of the day. Abandon yourself to "pleasure and diversion" but enjoy responsibly.