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181 The volcano associated with Lake Taupo in New Zealand erupts, one of the largest eruptions on Earth in the last 5,000 years. The effects of this eruption were seen as far away as Rome and China.
1642 Abel Tasman
achieves the first recorded European sighting of New Zealand.
1815 British missionaries arrive in New Zealand
1827 Shrigley Abduction: Ellen Turner, a wealthy heiress in Cheshire
, England
is abducted by Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the future politician in colonial New Zealand.
1840 British
colonists reach New Zealand. Official founding date of Wellington.
1840 Treaty of Waitangi, document granting British sovereignty in New Zealand, is signed.
1840 William Hobson, first Governor of New Zealand, suffers a stroke.
1842 New Zealand seat of government moves from Russell to Auckland
1848 Province
of Otago in New Zealand is founded.
1850 The first four sailing ships arrived at the Port of Lyttelton (New Zealand), with 792 emigrants or ''Canterbury Pilgrims'' as they called themselves. On this day they founded an exclusive theocratic Utopia, which they called Christchurch.
1853 New Zealand acquires self-government
1855 The region of Wairarapa, New Zealand was hit by the strongest earthquake
ever recorded in New Zealand, which reached Magnitude 8.1 on the Richter Scale. There were five deaths.
1860 New Maori
revolt begins in New Zealand
1861 First Taranaki War ends in New Zealand.
1868 New Zealand officially adopts nationally observed standard time, and was perhaps the first country to do so.
1870 First rugby match to be played in New Zealand, between the Nelson Football Club and Nelson College.
1886 Eruption of Mount Tarawera volcano in New Zealand, resulting in the deaths of over 150 people and the destruction of the famous Pink and White Terraces.
1888 First sightings of the dolphin Pelorus Jack in Cook Strait, New Zealand
1893 New Zealand becomes first country in the world to grant women the vote.
1894 New Zealand becomes the first country to pass a minimum wage
law
1903 Possible first powered heavier-than-air flight, Richard Pearse
, New Zealand (some date it to 1902)
1907 New Zealand and Newfoundland
become a dominion.
1916 World War I
: Battle of Magdhaba - In the Sinai
desert, Australia
n and New Zealand mounted troops capture the Turkish
garrison.
1931 Napier earthquake - much of the New Zealand city of Napier is destroyed in an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale
1933 January 11 Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia
and New Zealand.
1937 New Zealand
1947 New Zealand ratifies the Statute of Westminster and thus becomes independent of legislative control by the United Kingdom
.
1948 Geoffrey B. Orbell rediscovers the Takahe, last seen 50 years ago, near Lake Te Anau, New Zealand.
1951 The United States
, Australia
and New Zealand all sign a mutual defense pact, called the ANZUS Treaty (for "Australia, New Zealand, United States").
1952 Fireball crashes in a backyard in Havelock North, New Zealand
1953 153 people die as a result of the Tangiwai disaster when the railway bridge collapses at Tangiwai, New Zealand sending a fully loaded passenger train into the Whangaehu River
1961 The death penalty is abolished in New Zealand.
1962 Western Samoa
becomes independent from New Zealand.
1971 Vietnam War
: Australia
and New Zealand decide to withdraw their troops from Vietnam
.
1973 France
resumes nuclear bomb tests in Mururoa Atoll, over the protests of Australia
and New Zealand.
1975 In New Zealand, Maori
leader Whina Cooper leads a march of 5000 people in support of Maori claims to their land
1977 March 7 - Queen Elizabeth II
visits New Zealand.
1981 The 1981 Springbok Tour commences in New Zealand, amid controversy over the support of Apartheid.
1984 New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon calls a snap election and is heavily defeated by opposition Labour leader David Lange
.
1986 The Soviet liner ''Mikhail Lermontov'' runs aground in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand.
1989 United Airlines Flight 811, a Boeing 747
bound to New Zealand from Honolulu, Hawaii
, rips open during flight, sucking 9 passengers and crew out of the first class section.
1990 The New Zealand general election returns the National with record number of 67 seats.
1998 A 66-day blackout begins in Auckland, New Zealand.
1999 Photo driver licences and banknotes made out of polymer substrate are introduced to New Zealand.
1999 Helen Clark
, of the New Zealand Labour Party, becomes the first elected woman Prime Minister in New Zealand history.
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Timeline
