The Herald Sun front pages from the last three decades that shocked and inspired

Victoria has endured, celebrated and been left stunned by the big news events of the past 30 years. The Herald Sun’s brilliant storytelling and compelling pictures have been there for the journey. Here are some of the standout front pages. Plus, leave your message to Melbourne.

* To mark the Herald Sun’s 30th birthday milestone, over the next 30 days we will celebrate all that makes Victoria and Melbourne great. Starting with the fantastic souvenir poster by cartoonist Mark Knight our coverage will include the state’s 30 most influential people of the past 30 years, greatest sporting moments, and best photos. To get your Mark Knight cartoon pick up a copy of the Thursday Herald Sun or find it in the Herald Sun Shop online store. Subscribers can also purchase a limited edition print at heraldsun.com.au/rewards. Plus, leave your love letter to Melbourne in the form below.

Progressive yet conservative, footy-mad but quietly refined, energetic while laid back, Victoria is a unique blend of what outsiders might see as contradictions but which the state celebrates as character.

Since federation, Victoria — which hosted federal parliament from 1901 until 1927 — has forged itself as the nation’s unrivalled sporting capital, its multicultural, industrial, financial, arts, culinary and even caffeine heartland.

Times have changed dramatically over the course of the state’s history but traditions have remained almost unaltered — something symbolised by Melbourne’s buildings, the confluence of historic grandeur with pockets of striking modernism — a past and future combined.

Herald Sun photographer Alex Coppel’s image of the devastating Black Saturday bushfires.

Over the last 30 years, as Victoria’s population boomed and it’s rhythm quickened, the state has been tested by economic and societal challenge, by politics, by nature, by crime and now by COVID — but has also applauded triumph, that of individual effort, communal spirit, calendars packed with marvellous events, and a shared purpose.

Today, the Herald Sun marks 30 years of delivering Victoria its news, uncovering its stories, fighting for its community.

As Victoria now navigates its way through dual impacts of the health and economic crisis, the need for trust has been crucial.

The challenges of 2020, in an age where unchecked information on many social media platforms divides and confuses, the Herald Sun has helped Victorians cut through the fog with insight and analysis, and with fearless opinion that holds authority to account.

October 8, 1990 - Herald Sun publishes its first edition celebrating Collingwood’s drought-breaking 14th premiership under Leigh Matthews.

April 15, 1991 — schoolgirl Karmein Chan is kidnapped from her home in Templestowe horrifying Melburnians and increasing fears over the serial child sex attacker dubbed Mr Cruel.

“From the city centre, to the exquisite gardens of my parents’ home at Cruden Farm, my original home town of Melbourne has always held a cherished place for me,” said Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of News Corp — the Herald Sun’s parent company.

“The Herald Sun is going from strength to strength as it celebrates 30 years of agenda-setting journalism and campaigning on behalf of its community.

“The Herald Sun is the voice of Melbourne and Victoria, and this powerful connection with its audience in print and digital ensures Australia’s largest-selling newspaper has a bright future ahead.”

On October 8, 1990, two of the state’s great publishers combined, blending the authority and history of The Herald, with its journalism pedigree stretching back to the Gold Rush days of 1840 at the Port Phillip Herald, together with the pace and irreverence of the Sun News-Pictorial, which launched in 1922.

The Sun was Victoria’s first daily newspaper to include pictures and The Herald became famous for scooping the media world by running a special late Sunday edition informing readers of the outbreak of World War II.

April 29, 1996 — The mass shooting at Port Arthur in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded at the former penal colony brought US-style gun terror to Australia and forced massive changes to firearms laws.

That merger three decades ago instantly forged a quality tabloid for the future, packed with coverage which uncovered, engaged and entertained.

The Herald Sun has always been unashamedly parochial — the first edition of the newly-minted paper in 1990 celebrated the end of the ‘Colliwobbles’ as the Magpies broke their 32-year premiership hoodoo.

In a state where football is the unofficial religion, the Pies premiership pushed the Gulf War from the front page.

The years since have seen a continual evolution at the Herald Sun, from full-colour printing in 1993 and the early adoption of digital news with the launch of heraldsun.com.au in 1996, to subsequent delivery across tablet and mobile apps, with rolling 24/7 coverage of events at home and across the planet.

March 11, 1996 — Interstate rivalry was revved up when Melbourne secured the rights to the Australian Grand Prix from Adelaide.

September 1, 1997 – The death of Princess Diana in a high-speed car crash in a Paris tunnel sparked an outpouring of grief.

As Melbourne cemented itself as the nation’s events capital, we welcomed the first running of Melbourne’s F1 Grand Prix in 1996.

We saw in the new millennium and cheered on the Sydney Olympics and Cathy Freeman’s glorious 400m gold in 2000, six years before we celebrated Melbourne hosting the XVIII Commonwealth Games, with the Green and Gold again topping the medal count.

We witnessed the unfathomable horror in Port Arthur in 1996 and mourned the death in Paris of Princess Diana a year later.

June 17, 1997 – The kidnap and killing of toddler Jaidyn Leskie at Moe saw Greg Domaszewicz charged with murder but found not guilty.

August 4, 1997 – Catastrophe struck the idyllic Thredbo ski resort in July 1997, killing 18 people, with the only survivor, ski instructor Stuart Diver, rescued after being trapped for 65 hours near the body of his wife.

The heinous murders of police officers Sergeant Gary Silk and Senior Constable Rodney Miller were a direct attack on the state and on law and order in 1998, marking a frontline loss which was again horribly felt when four officers died at Kew earlier this year responding to a traffic stop.

As the World Trade Centre towers collapsed, the 2001 attacks in New York shook the world and just a year later, 202 people, including 88 Australians, were murdered in the Bali bombings as an era of terrorism expanded its evil.

January 1, 2000 — Despite fears the Y2K bug would send computers into meltdown as clocks ticked over to 2000, the world partied like it was 1999 to herald the new millennium.

We watched in awe as North Melbourne’s Jason McCartney, just eight months after almost losing his life in those bombings, returned to the footy field — clad in a burns suit — to play an instrumental role in a famous Kanga’s win and a victory of the human spirit.

War broke out in Afghanistan and then Iraq, claiming the lives of 47 Diggers across those torrid campaigns; the Columbia shuttle disaster shocked us in 2003, the Boxing Day tsunami wrought unimaginable destruction a year later and the Beaconsfield mine collapse had Australians praying for a miracle, which arrived with the rescue of Brant Webb and Todd Russell after two frantic weeks in 2006.

September 11, 2001 — Live-stream broadcast of hijacked passenger aircrafts bringing down the World Trade Centre towers in New York and plummeting into the Pentagon outside Washington shocked the world and signalled the beginning of the war on terror.

October 12, 2002 — The terror bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy’s Bar in the tourist paradise killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

It was a national elation also felt back in 1997, when Stuart Diver was pulled from the debris at Thredbo after being buried for 65 hours — and again when Australian experts helped lead the inch-by-inch extraction of 12 young Thai soccer players, imprisoned for 18 days by a labyrinth of water and tunnels in Tham Luang cave in 2018.

March 21, 2003 — US President George Bush presented it as the ‘shock and awe’ war to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction amassed by Saddam Hussein.

December 27, 2004 — With an estimated 230,000-plus dead, including 26 Australians, the scale of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami which tore across Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand was beyond comprehension.

The catastrophic 2009 Black Saturday fires killed 173 people, wiped out entire communities and devastated Victorians like no other disaster before it.

The hunt for the world’s most wanted fugitive, al Qaeda terror leader Osama bin Laden ended with his shooting death in 2011 during a Navy Seal raid on his compound in Abbottabad.

May 9, 2006 — The images of Brant Webb and Todd Russell emerging rescued from the depths of the Beaconsfield gold mine in Tasmania two weeks after it collapsed was a celebration of endurance and survival.

September 5. 2006 — Australians lost one of their most iconic characters, Steve Irwin, the colourful “Crocodile Hunter,” pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming on the Great Barrier Reef.

A year later, the murder of Jill Meagher enraged Victorians, prompted major rallies and sparked change to parole laws.

In 2013, the footy world was rocked by the Essendon supplements scandal, a saga which endured until the 2016 findings against 34 players and cost Jobe Watson his Brownlow.

March 15, 2006 — Melbourne was shining at its best to welcome the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

November 5, 2011 — Twelve Melbourne Cups, seven Caulfield Cups, 33 derbies and 268 Group 1 wins. There was simply no one like legendary trainer Bart Cummings.

In 2014, the Herald Sun broke the Lawyer X scandal and launched our Right to Know campaign, elements of which ended up in the High Court, later forcing a Royal Commission with the controversial fallout from Nicola Gobbo’s duplicity and police overreach continuing today.

The nation was transfixed that same year as the horror and tension of the Lindt Cafe siege unfolded over two excruciating days in Martin Place, Sydney — with Australians forced to confront a terrorist atrocity on home soil.

February 8, 2009 — The Black Saturday bushfires, forever scarred the state, killed 173 people, injured 414, and ravaged more than 78 communities, decimating townships including Marysville, Kinglake, Kinglake West, Narbethong, Flowerdale and Strathewen.

November, 20, 2009 — The extraordinary journey of conjoined Bangladeshi twins Trishna and Krishna, separated after more than 27 hours of complex surgery at Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital captured the hearts of the nation and the world.

The horrendous Bourke St rampage unfolded in January 2017 when six people were killed and 27 injured, an incomprehensible crime which tore at our city’s heart and forced bail system reforms.

We’ve applauded Bart Cummings’ record 12th Melbourne Cup and Michelle Payne’s fairytale Cup win aboard Prince of Penzance in 2015; the spectacle of Damien Oliver blowing a kiss to the heavens after winning the 2002 Cup on Media Puzzle, days after his brother Jason was killed in a fall, and the magical journeys of Makybe Diva, Black Caviar and wonder horse Winx.

April 20, 2010 — The Barwon Prison bashing murder of baby-faced killer and drug trafficker Williams marked one of the closing chapters of Melbourne’s gangland war.

May 3, 2011 — Osama bin Laden, the world’s most-wanted man, the figurehead behind the 9/11 attacks which sparked the war on terrorism, was finally tracked down and killed  at an Abbottabad compound in Pakistan during raid by elite US Navy SEALs.

The historic Tour de France win by Cadel Evans in 2011 had bleary-eyed Australians up late at night, while the Western Bulldogs drought-breaking Premiership in 2016 was followed the next year by Richmond’s 37-year wait for premiership glory, capping off incredible years of resurgence for our heartland clubs.

The Herald Sun has been a driving force for the community and legislative reform.

July 25, 2011 — Cadel Evans secured a place in cycling history and the elation of bleary-eyed Aussies who sat late into the night to witness the tough-as-nails Evans become the first Australian to win the coveted Tour de France.

September 26, 2012 — The rape and murder of Jill Meagher, attacked after she left a Brunswick pub sickened the community and caused mass rallies demanding an end to violence against women.

We launched the Herald Sun’s Take a Stand campaign in 2014 in response to alarming levels of domestic violence.

A subsequent Royal Commission handed down 227 sweeping recommendations for major changes in the way authorities tackle the issue and the Andrews Government budgeted $1.91 billion in response, as well as establishing a stand-alone Family Violence Prevention Agency.

That commitment to community has always been at the paper’s forefront.

November 4, 2015 — Michelle Payne salutes as the first female jockey to win the race that stops the nation.

October 2, 2016 — The Western Bulldogs ended a record 62-year premiership drought.

The Herald & Weekly Times started the Good Friday Appeal in 1931 with journalists running a sporting carnival to raise funds for Melbourne hospitals.

Today, the Herald Sun continues to be the driving force in annual fundraising support for the Royal Children’s Hospital, to date helping raise more than $381 million.

Our commitment extends to one of the largest fun runs in Victoria, the Herald Sun/Transurban Run for the Kids, which has raised $16 million for the Appeal; Australia’s oldest stage cycling race, the Jayco Herald Sun Tour; a celebration of young, world-class operatic talent in the Herald Sun Aria, and the grassroots recognition of the best and most selfless in our community through the Pride of Australia Awards.

January 21, 2017 — An everyday, busy afternoon on January 20 in Bourke St mall turned to horrific mayhem as James Gargasoulas rammed a stolen Commodore through crowds, killing six people and injuring 27 others while being pursued by police.

July 11, 2018 — At first there was little hope of finding life, then it would take a miracle to extract 12 young boys and their soccer coach from 4km deep within the flooded tunnels of the Tham Luang cave system in Thailand. Among a team of rescuers, Australian experts Dr Richard Harris and Dr Craig Challen.

We have also fought to keep a check on governments in Spring St and Canberra.

From Labor’s Red Shirts scandal, the Baillieu secret tapes crisis, various ministerial and MP rorts, Steve Herbert’s chauffeured dogs, Bronwyn Bishop’s helicopter jaunt and Sussan Ley’s Gold Coast flat, we’ve demanded accountability, transparency and progress.

The Herald Sun has never pulled punches, regardless of political colour.

For the past 30 years and for the decades to come, we are here for Victorians delivering trusted news, sport, entertainment and insight directly to pockets, desktops and doorsteps.

March 2, 2019 — After a five-year campaign by the Herald Sun to reveal the most corrosive attack on the state’s criminal justice system, former barrister-turned-secret police informer Nicola Gobbo was named and outed as Lawyer X.

August 3, 2020 — Victoria announced a state of emergency in March as COVID struck — and then a state of disaster in August as the Andrews government’s mishandling of hotel quarantine let loose a second wave and sparked onerous stage four restrictions.

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