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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 1, 1863
- Opening of the Ferrymead to Moorhouse Avenue railway, New Zealand’s first public steam railway. (The gauge was 5ft 3ins.)
- December 1, 1871
- First rose show.
- December 1, 1873
- Westland becomes a separate province. It had already become a separate county on January 1 1868.
- December 1, 1889
- First New Zealand-built locomotive completed at Addington railway workshops.
- December 1, 1949
- Sidney G. (later Sir Sidney) Holland (Fendalton) becomes Prime Minister.
- December 1, 1950
- Kerrs Reach cutting on the Avon River completed.
- December 1, 1975
- Rolleston satellite town project scrapped.
- December 1, 1987
- Visit by King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola of Belgium.
- December 1, 1988
- 125th anniversary of the opening of New Zealand's first steam passenger railway from Christchurch to Ferrymead. (Commemorated Labour Weekend with a steam train cavalcade. See 1863)
- December 2, 1854
- Canterbury Jockey Club formed (the first in New Zealand).
- December 2, 1866
- Moa bones discovered at Glenmark. The international sale and exchange of these helped Haast, the Canterbury Museum’s first Director, to finance the new museum.
- December 2, 1960
- Rehua meeting house opens, the first new meeting house in the South Island for over 100 years.
- December 3, 1867
- Canterbury Museum (New Zealand’s first) opened to public in an upstairs room in the Canterbury Provincial Government Buildings The collection had been assembled by Julius (later Sir Julius) Von Haast. See 1872
- December 3, 1924
- Children’s Library opens in Hereford Street.
- December 3, 1972
- First jumbo jet lands at airport.
- December 5, 1881
- Earthquake damages Cathedral spire.
- December 5, 1987
- Rev Margaret Wood elected the first female Archdeacon in the Christchurch Anglican Diocese.
- December 6, 1983
- 16 year old Christchurch student David Tan completes B.Sc Honours degree at Canterbury University to become New Zealand’s youngest ever university graduate.
- December 7, 1883
- Second Industrial Exhibition opens.
