famous firsts

Few expected identical twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell to successfully defend the double sculls title they had won in Athens in 2004. Read more...

Beatrice Faumuina became the first New Zealander to win an event at a World Athletics Championships when she threw the discus 66.82 m at Athens in 1997. Read more...

Anna Paquin was the first New Zealander to win an Oscar for acting and the second youngest recipient in Oscar history. Director Jane Campion won an Oscar for best original screenplay. Read more...

Dr Penny Jamieson, who had been ordained as a priest in 1985, became the Anglican bishop of Dunedin − the first woman in the world to hold such a position. She retired in 2004. Read more...

With Michael Jones, John Kirwan and captain David Kirk scoring tries, the All Blacks defeated France 29-9 at Eden Park, Auckland. Kirk became the first captain to lift the Webb Ellis Cup. Read more...

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. Read more...

With two minutes to play in a rugby test match against Wales, All Black lock Andy Haden flung himself sideways as if in a C-grade action movie in an attempt to secure a match-winning penalty Read more...

Chasing 137 for victory in the first test at the Basin Reserve in Wellington, England was bowled out for 64, with Richard Hadlee taking 6 for 26. Read more...

John Walker became history’s first sub-3:50 miler on 12 August, running 3:49.4 at Gothenburg, Sweden. Read more...

American Lynne Cox became the first woman to swim across Cook Strait, battling heavy seas and strong winds during her 12-hour crossing. Read more...

In 2008 the well-known sports writer Joseph Romanos chose the victory of the 1972 rowing eight as the best team performance by New Zealanders at an Olympic Games. Read more...

Long-haired Christchurch mountaineers John Glasgow and Peter Gough became the first to scale the 2000-m Caroline Face of Aoraki/Mt Cook, declaring it a ‘triumph for the hippies’ Read more...

The school milk scheme was begun in 1937 as part of the first Labour government's strategy to improve child health. Read more...

The state's monopoly of commercial radio broadcasting was challenged by the pirate station Radio Hauraki's first scheduled transmission from the vessel Tiri in the Colville Channel. Read more...

Sir Guy Powles was New Zealand's first Ombudsman. In a loose translation from Swedish, the word means ‘grievance person’. The office was created to investigate complaints about government departments and other national public sector organisations. Read more...

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. Read more...

Sir Edmund Hillary led the New Zealand component of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition on the first overland trip to the South Pole since Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated journey in 1912. Read more...

After 22 draws and 22 losses in 26 years of test cricket, New Zealand defeated the West Indies by 190 runs in the fourth test at Eden Park.  Read more...

Jean Batten set a number of aviation firsts before flying from the UK to NZ in 11 days 45 minutes. A crowd of 6000 greeted her at Mangere Aerodrome. Read more...

22-year-old pilot E.F. ('Teddy') Harvie and his passenger, 18-year-old Miss Trevor Hunter, set a record for the longest flight within New Zealand in a single day. They completed the 1880-km journey in 16 hours 10 minutes. Read more...

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 husband, James McCombs. Read more...

From the family sheep station in Shag Valley, East Otago, amateur radio operator Frank Bell sent a ground-breaking Morse code transmission which was received and replied to by London-based amateur operator Cecil Goyder.  Read more...

Following a US study tour by Frank Milner, the rector of Waitaki Boys’ High School, the Education Department began applying the Terman Group Test of Mental Ability to all first-year post-primary school students Read more...

Captain Euan Dickson completed the first air crossing of Cook Strait, flying a 110-hp Le Rhone Avro from Christchurch to Upper Hutt and carrying the first air mail between the South and North Islands. Read more...

In the Auckland Supreme Court, Dennis Gunn was convicted of the murder of a postmaster and sentenced to death. In what was claimed to be a world first for a capital crime, Gunn's conviction was based almost entirely on fingerprint evidence. Read more...

The 'Parliament Special' travelled over a makeshift track in the central section of the still-unfinished main trunk line. It carried MPs north to greet the American navy's 'Great White Fleet'. Read more...

The first fully representative New Zealand rugby team to tour the northern hemisphere was known as the 'Originals'. They won 34 of their 35 matches and popularised both the haka and the 'All Blacks' nickname. Read more...

The first motion pictures known to have been taken in New Zealand were made by photographer W.H. Bartlett, who filmed the opening of the Auckland Industrial and Mining Exhibition Read more...

At 1.30 on the afternoon of Christmas Day 1894, three young men became the first to stand atop Aoraki/Mt Cook, the highest mountain in the colony. Read more...

The first Labour Day celebrated the struggle for an eight-hour working day. Parades in the main centres were attended by several thousand trade union members and supporters. Read more...

Young surveyor William Quill needed only basic climbing equipment, including a billhook and an alpenstock, to scale the side of the ‘great Sutherland waterfall’ which cascades for 580 m near Milford Sound. Read more...

Privately organised and mainly Māori, this was the first national rugby team to wear the silver fern. During their tour of New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, they played 107 rugby matches and 11 under Australian rules. Read more...

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. Read more...

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. Read more...

The lighthouse on Pencarrow Head was lit for the first time amid great celebration. After years of inadequate solutions, Wellington finally had a permanent lighthouse – a New Zealand first. Read more...

At Oihi Beach in the Bay of Islands, Marsden preached in English to a largely Māori gathering, launching the Christian missionary phase of New Zealand history. Read more...

On the evening of 18 December Abel Tasman and his men had the first known European encounter with Māori. Misunderstanding and fear led to violence next day. Read more...