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A timeline of some Christchurch events in chronological order from 1700s to 1989.
Go to a year between 1700 & 1989
Begin at the beginning 
This week in history
- December 11, 1979
- Completion of airport international arrivals terminal, stage 1 (arrival hall).
- December 12, 1849
- New Zealand Company agrees to reserve two and a half million acres as a site for the Canterbury settlement.
- December 12, 1941
- Slit trenches dug in Hagley Park and in Cranmer and Latimer Squares.
- December 13, 1942
- Premiere in Christchurch of "Landfall in Unknown Seas" by Douglas Lilburn and Allen Curnow.
- December 14, 1907
- First Plunket Shield cricket match at Lancaster Park. (Auckland defeated Canterbury.)
- December 15, 1848
- Captain Joseph Thomas, William Fox, and surveyors Cass and Torlesse arrive at the site of Lyttelton in the “Fly”. Thomas names the harbour “Port Victoria”. He and his party had been sent by the Canterbury Association to choose a site for the new colony and make the necessary preparations for the arrival of settlers in 1850.
- December 15, 1945
- Railway line to Picton completed.
- December 15, 1965
- Roll on/roll off loading facility in use at Lyttelton Harbour.
- December 16-17, 1956
- Visit by Duke of Edinburgh.
- December 16, 1850
- “Charlotte Jane” and “Randolph” arrive at Lyttelton.
- December 16, 1851
- Anniversary celebrations in Hagley Park. First organised sport, including horse races, athletics and a cricket match.
- December 16, 1852
- Anniversary celebrations include the first horticultural exhibition.
- December 16, 1864
- Foundation stone laid for Christchurch Cathedral. The weather was atrocious.
- December 16, 1869
- Anniversary celebrated by the first "boneshaker" bicycle race - from Latimer Square to the railway station and back.
- December 16, 1872
- First Interprovincial Exhibition opens.
- December 16, 1905
- Christchurch’s Bob Deans scores "the try that wasn’t" in Wales on the first All Black tour of the United Kingdom. The All Blacks "lost" only this game 3-0. Deans died of pneumonia in 1908, aged 24.
- December 16, 1942
- Construction of Sign of the Takahe taken over by City.
- December 16, 1944
- Reconstructed cob cottage at Ferrymead officially opens.
- December 16, 1950
- Harewood Airport becomes New Zealand’s first International Airport - 100 years to the day from the arrival of the first Canterbury Association settlers.
- December 16, 1984
- John Walker becomes the first person to run a sub four minute mile in Canterbury. He broke the record at QEII Park. February 1985, Walker broke the world record for highest number of sub four minute miles.
- December 17, 1850
- “Sir George Seymour” arrives.
- December 17, 1935
- City Council decides to buy 230 hectares of land at Harewood for a city airport. The purchase was strongly criticised in many quarters as excessively large, but subsequent history has more than vindicated the decision.
- December 17, 1979
- City Council approves Neighbourhood Committee scheme.
