Women in New Zealand have voted in parliamentary elections since 1893, a quarter of a century before those in Britain, Germany or Russia.
The events
- New Zealand women win the vote1893 · Wellington, New Zealand. On 19 September 1893 the governor signed the Electoral Act, making New Zealand the first self-governing country where women could vote in parliamentary elections. The campaign was led by Kate Sheppard; that year's petitions gathered nearly 32,000 signatures. Ten weeks later, on 28 November, about two-thirds of the country's women voted, Māori women included. They could not stand for parliament until 1919.
- World War I1914–1918 · Sarajevo. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 drew the great powers into a war of the Entente against Germany and its allies. It killed millions and brought down the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires.
More amazing facts
- 1883 The last quagga died at Amsterdam Zoo on 12 August 1883 — two weeks before Krakatoa's catastrophic eruption.
- 1889 The Eiffel Tower opened in spring 1889, and in June van Gogh painted The Starry Night at the Saint-Rémy asylum.
- 1895 In 1895 Popov demonstrated a radio receiver in St Petersburg, and the Lumière brothers held the first paid film screening in Paris.
- 1903 · 1961 · 1969 Just 58 years separate the Wright brothers' first flight from Gagarin's, and 66 from the Moon landing — some who saw the first airplanes lived to see the Moon.
- 1908 1908: the Tunguska blast flattened 2,000 km² of Siberian forest, and the Messina earthquake killed some 80,000 people.
- 1914 Passenger pigeons once numbered in the billions, but the last one, Martha, died on 1 September 1914 — a month after World War I began.