 | LOCAL HISTORY |
YEAR: 1950
The Legislative Council is abolished, voting itself out of existence.
A wool boom begins and causes such intense inflationary pressure that some income is frozen.
The death penalty for murder is reintroduced.
British Empire Games held in Auckland.
Canterbury celebrates its centennial
The Centinnial Pool is opened
December 16 - Harewood Airport becomes NZ's first International Airport - 100 years to the day from the arrival of the first Canterbury Association settlers.
The Kerrs Reach cutting in the Avon river is completed.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1949
First Lady Wigram motor race. The Wigram course was NZ's first true motor racing track.
The Sign of the Takahe opens.
May 27 - NZ's first commercial ariel topdressing on Banks Peninsula.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1948
An Act of Parliament creates New Zealand citizenship, distinct from 'British subject'.
February - Schools closed because of polio epidemic.
Controversy erupts over the purchase of Frances Hodgkin's Pleasure Garden painting.
The City Council takes over the Public Library from the University.
Six passengers were killed and 61 injured when the Picton - Christchurch express derailed at Blind River near Seddon.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1947
February 26 - First ticketed airline flight from NZ - Lancastrian "City of London" flies from Harewood to Sydney.
May 14 - Mabel Howard (Sydenham) becomes Minister of Health, the country's first woman Cabinet Minister.
November 18 - Disastrous fire in Ballantynes Department store when 41 lives(all staff members)were lost. The fire led to drastic revisions of fire safety codes throughout the country.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1946
January - Shops and Offices Amendment Act ends Saturday shopping, but New Brighton gains an exemption to allow Saturday trading to continue.
Universal Family Benefit of £1 per week introduced
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1945
May 11 - Upham presented with VC. New Zealand's most decorated soldier was recognised for outstanding gallantry and leadership in Crete in 1941 and Egypt in 1942. He remains the only combat soldier to win a Bar to his VC.
May 19 - Severe flooding throughout city.
June 13 - Severe gales with gusts up to 145km/h were recorded followed by a record 280mm snowfall over the city on July 14
December 15 - Railway line to Picton completed
The Government sets up National Airways as the domestic airline.
The Bank of New Zealand is nationalised.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1943
June 4 - At 1.45pm on Friday 4 June 1943 the Cromwell-Dunedin express, travelling at speed, derailed while rounding a curve near Hyde in Central Otago. Twenty one passengers were killed and 47 injured in what was then New Zealand's worst ever rail accident. The driver was later found guilty of manslaughter.
October - "Risingholme" bought by Sir John McKenzie and presented to the city as a public park. Early in 1949 it became a community centre, the first to be established in a large town.
Forty-eight Japanese prisoners die and seventy-four are wounded in a riot at a Featherston POW camp. One NZ guard is killed.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1942
May - Air raid shelters dug in Cathedral Square.
Japanese reconnaissance aircraft fly over Wellington once and Auckland twice in March and May.
NZ troops in the North African desert war lead off at the Battle of El Alamein, the first major Allied victory on land.
The first United States troops arrive in NZ to prepare for the Soloman Islands campaign against the Japanese
October 26 - Women Jurors Act allows women to sit on juries. The Act provided for women between the ages of 25 and 60 to have their names placed on the jury list on the same basis as men – if they so desired. The first female juror, Miss E.R. Kingsman, served at the Auckland Supreme Court in 1943.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1941
December 12 - Slit tenches dug in Hagley Park and in Cranmer and Latimer Squares.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
YEAR: 1940
Conscription is introduced for the armed services; 60,000 men had already enlisted.
January 5 - First echelon of Canterbury troops for World War II leave Lyttelton.
May 18 - Harewood Airport officially opens.
November 25 - "Holmwood" en route from the Chathams to Lyttelton, sunk by German raiders. "Turakina" and "Rangitane" are sunk in the Tasman Sea.
Credit: Ch-Ch City Libraries
| << PREVIOUS | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 | NEXT >> |