Today in History
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Historic NZ events in September
Sep
1987 New Zealander sentenced to death in Malaysia
Lorraine Cohen was sentenced to death by a Malaysian judge for heroin trafficking. On appeal her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The trial of Lorraine and her son Aaron, who was arrested at the same time, gained worldwide attention. more...
Sep
1960 Golden day for Kiwi runners in Rome
It was arguably New Zealand's greatest day at the Olympics. Peter Snell won gold in the 800 m and Murray Halberg followed up 30 minutes later to win the 5000 m, completing a remarkable track double in Rome's Olympic Stadium. more...
Links
- Lydiard's legacy - sport, 1940-60
- Peter Snell and Murray Halberg win Olympic gold
- NZ's first Olympic century
- 1960 - key events
- A world record at Cooks Gardens - roadside stories
- Peter Snell (Puke Ariki)
- Peter Snell (olympic.org)
- Athletics - Olympics (1966 encyclopaedia)
- Halberg, Murray Gordon (1966 encyclopaedia)
- Snell, Peter George (1966 encyclopaedia)
- Peter Snell athlete (NZ On Screen)
1972 New Zealand’s rowing eight win gold in Munich
In 2008 well-known sports writer Joseph Romanos chose the victory of the 1972 rowing eight as the best team performance by New Zealanders at the Olympics. more...
1979 Ivan Mauger won a record sixth world speedway title in Katowice, Poland
As well as a record six individual world championships between 1968 and 1979, including three titles in a row between 1968 and 1970, Mauger also won the long track world championship three times between 1971 and 1976. more...
Links
Sep
1939 New Zealand declares war on Germany
Alongside Britain and Australia, New Zealand was one of the first countries to become involved in the global conflict precipitated by Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. more...
1958 First open-heart surgery in NZ
Pioneering heart surgeon Brian Barratt-Boyes performed the surgery using a heart-lung bypass machine. The procedure, at Green Lane Hospital in Auckland, was performed on an 11-year-old girl with a hole in her heart. more...
Sep
2010 Magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocks Canterbury
The earthquake struck at 4.35 a.m. on Saturday 4 September and was felt by many people in the South Island and the southern North Island. There was considerable damage in central Canterbury, especially in Christchurch, but no loss of life. more...
1863 The wreck of the Delaware
Soon after leaving Nelson for Napier, the Delaware was wrecked in what is now known as Delaware Bay. Accounts of the incident often focus on the heroism of Huria Matenga, the only woman in a party of five local Māori who assisted the crew to shore. more...
Links
- New Zealand disasters timeline
- Rescue at Delaware Bay - roadside stories
- Huria Matenga's funeral procession (Timeframes)
- Huria Matenga biography (DNZB)
- Huria Matenga: Maori heroine (1966 encyclopaedia)
- Huria Matenga, the Brave Swimmer (NZETC)
- Shipwrecks: Perils of the Sea (Te Ara)
- Rescue at Delaware Bay - Roadside Stories
Sep
1939 PM declares NZ's support for Britain
In declaring New Zealand's support for Britain in the war with Germany that had just begun, an ailing Michael Joseph Savage famously told the nation that 'Where she goes, we go. Where she stands, we stand'. more...
Sep
1948 New Zealand citizenship established
Prior to this act coming into effect, all New Zealanders were classified as British subjects. Separate New Zealand citizenship became possible on 1 January 1949. This was a change New Zealand did not initiate. more...
Sep
1868 Von Tempsky killed at Te Ngutu-o-te-manu
Gustavus von Tempsky was killed during an assault on Tītokowaru's south Taranaki pā. His paintings and accounts of the New Zealand Wars had made the Prussian soldier of fortune a folk hero for many European settlers. more...
Links
- Prophets and colonists - New Zealand Wars
- Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky
- Normanby NZ Wars memorial
- Te Ngutu o te Manu memorial
- Turuturumōkai - Tītokowaru's war
- The South Taranaki war: Titokowaru's war (The NZ Wars)
- Gustavus von Tempsky biography (DNZB)
- Riwha Titokowaru biography (DNZB)
- Ngati Ruanui: a new order emerges (Te Ara)
- Major von Tempsky - Soldier of Fortune (Puke Ariki)
1909 NZ’s heaviest ever gold nugget discovered
New Zealand’s heaviest recorded nugget was found at Ross on the West Coast. Weighing 2.81 kg, the nugget was named the 'Honourable Roddy' after the Minister of Mines, Roderick McKenzie. more...
1921 Springboks play NZ Maori for first time
‘Bad enough having play team officially designated New Zealand Natives’, a South African journalist wrote in a report of the match played between the Springboks and a New Zealand Maori XV at Napier. more...
Sep
1954 NZ signs Manila Pact
The South-East Asia Collective Defence Treaty, or Manila Pact, aimed to contain the spread of communism in the region. The South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) was the institutional expression of this Treaty. more...
Sep
1976 Wanganui Computer legislation passed
'Big Brother is watching'? The New Zealand government's establishment of the country's first centralised electronic database through the Wanganui Computer Act raised questions about the state's ability to gather information on its citizens. more...
Sep
1914 Eruption on White Island kills 10 people
On 10 September 1914 ten miners working on White Island were killed when part of the crater wall collapsed, causing a landslide more...
1984 Te Maori exhibition opens in New York
This exhibition was a milestone in the Maori cultural renaissance. After being hugely successful in New York, St Louis, San Francisco and Chicago, it returned to tour New Zealand to great acclaim. more...
Sep
1928 First trans-Tasman flight
Australians Charles Kingsford Smith and Charles Ulm, in their Southern Cross monoplane, landed at Wigram, Christchurch, 14 hours 25 minutes after leaving Sydney. More than 30,000 people thronged to greet them. more...
Sep
1981 'Flour-bomb test' ends Springbok tour
The third and deciding test at Eden Park, Auckland, is perhaps best remembered for the flares and flour bombs dropped onto the pitch from a light plane. Outside the ground, violence erupted on an unprecedented scale. more...
1914 Forty-three miners killed in explosion at Huntly
At 7.20 am an explosion at Ralph's mine on Raynor Road rocked Huntly. It was caused by a miner's naked acetylene cap-lamp igniting firedamp (methane gas given off by coal) more...
Sep
1933 NZ's first woman MP elected
The Labour Party's Elizabeth McCombs became the first woman Member of Parliament, winning a by-election in the Lyttelton seat caused by the death of her MP husband James McCombs. more...
Sep
1938 Social Security Act passed
The cornerstone of the first Labour government's 'cradle to the grave' welfare policies, this Act introduced revised pensions and extended the scope of benefits for families, invalids and the unemployed. more...
Sep
1976 Lyttelton–Wellington ferry service ends
The last sailing of the Rangatira brought to an end more than 80 years of regular passenger ferry services between Lyttelton and Wellington.
more...
1969 First steel produced from local ironsand
New Zealand Steel's mill at Glenbrook, south of Auckland, began producing a range of iron and steel products for both domestic and export markets. Using local ironsand and coal, the mill today produces about 650,000 tonnes of steel a year. more...
Sep
1905 'Originals' kick off All Black tradition
The first fully representative New Zealand rugby team to tour the Northern Hemisphere was known as the 'Originals'. Winning 34 of the 35 matches they played, they popularised both the haka and the 'All Blacks' nickname. more...
Sep
1941 Death penalty abolished...for the time being
This law change also ended flogging and whipping as punishments for murder. National reintroduced the death penalty in 1950 but it was finally abolished as the penalty for murder in 1961. more...
Sep
1937 First state house opened in Miramar
Most of the Labour Cabinet helped the McGregor family move into 12 Fife Lane in Miramar, Wellington. The government's aim was to rid New Zealand of sub-standard housing by building 5000 new homes a year. more...
Links
- The first state house - state housing in New Zealand
- Michael Joseph Savage
- First State House (Historic Places Trust)
- Liberal to Labour (Te Ara)
- Social Security: scope of 1938 legislation (1966 encyclopaedia)
- Labour Party (1966 encyclopaedia)
- Michael Joseph Savage biography (DNZB)
- John A Lee biography (DNZB)
Sep
1893 Women's suffrage day
Governor Lord Glasgow signed a new Electoral Act into law, making New Zealand the first self-governing country in the world to grant all women the right to vote in parliamentary elections. more...
Links
- Brief history - women and the vote
- Women MPs - Parliament's people
- Political and constitutional timeline
- Ada Wells
- John Hall
- John Ballance
- Women's suffrage petition (Archives NZ)
- Votes for women (Elections NZ)
- Monumental Stories (Learning Media)
- Liberal to Labour (Te Ara)
- The electoral system (Te Ara)
- Kate Sheppard biography (DNZB)
- John Ballance biography (DNZB)
Sep
1954 Mazengarb report released
The Mazengarb report into 'juvenile delinquency' blamed the perceived promiscuity of the nation's youth on the absence from home of working mothers, the easy availability of contraceptives, and on young women who enticed men into having sex. more...
Sep
1834 Rescue of Harriet survivors begins
Betty Guard and her children were rescued from Ngāti Ruanui (who had held them captive in Taranaki since April) by troops landed from HMS Alligator and the Isabella. It was the first clash between British forces and Māori. more...
Sep
1906 Domestic workers call for 68-hour week
The labour reforms of the Liberal government had earned New Zealand a reputation as a 'working man's paradise'. But what about working women? A 68-hour working week hardly seemed an unreasonable demand. more...
1931 Coalition formed to combat Depression
United Party Prime Minister George Forbes had convened an inter-party conference with the goal of forming a coalition government that would 'share the responsibility' of dealing with the Depression. Labour withdrew from these discussions but the leader of the conservative Reform Party was unable to resist pressure to heed this call. more...
Sep
1887 Tongariro mountains gifted to Crown
Horonuku (Te Heuheu Tūkino IV), the paramount chief of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, signed a deed presenting the mountain tops of Tongariro, Ngāuruhoe and Ruapehu to the Crown for the purpose of establishing a national park. more...
Sep
1905 Race killing in Haining St, Wellington
Lionel Terry killed Joe Kum Yung to draw attention to his crusade to rid New Zealand of Chinese people. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on the grounds of insanity.
more...Sep
1819 NZ's first grape vines planted?
The Anglican missionary Samuel Marsden noted in his journal that he had just planted 100 vines at Kerikeri and that New Zealand 'promises to be very favourable to the vine.' more...
Sep
1907 Joseph Ward proclaims Dominion status
From the steps of the General Assembly Library in Wellington, the Prime Minister read the proclamation to the gathered crowd. This first Dominion Day was a full public holiday. more...
1865 Native Rights Act declares Maori British subjects
The Act deemed all Maori to be natural-born subjects of the Crown, confirming in law the Treaty promise that Maori were to be accorded the same rights and privileges as other British subjects. more...
Sep
1974 William Sutch charged with spying
Economist Dr W.B. Sutch was charged with spying after what the NZSIS claimed were 'surreptitious and clandestine' meetings with a Russian diplomat. Despite his acquittal in 1975, speculation continues as to whether he was a spy.
more...Sep
1899 NZ answers Empire's call to arms in South Africa
Premier R.J. Seddon asked Parliament to approve an offer to the British government of a contingent of mounted rifles. Amid emotional scenes, the proposition was overwhelmingly endorsed - only five members voted against it. more...
Links
- Origins of the conflict - NZ in the South African War
- Richard Seddon
- NZ units in South Africa 1899-1902
- South African War memorials
- Departure of the 2nd Contingent ( Film Archive)
- Boer War (1966 encyclopaedia)
- New Zealanders in the South African War: Guide to resources (Christchurch City Libraries (pdf))
Sep
1862 NZ's first professional opera performance
Dunedin's Royal Princess Theatre was the venue for a performance of Donizetti's Daughter of the regiment by the visiting 'English Opera Troupe', supplemented by local performers. more...
Sep
1962 Government watchdog appointed
Sir Guy Powles became New Zealand's first Ombudsman. Loosely translated from Swedish, the term Ombudsman means ‘grievance person’. The office was created to investigate complaints about government departments and other national public sector organisations. more...
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