New Zealand becomes the first country where women vote

On 19 September 1893 Governor Lord Glasgow signed the Electoral Act, giving women in New Zealand the right to vote in parliamentary elections, the first self-governing country to do so. A petition organised by Kate Sheppard and the Women's Christian Temperance Union had gathered nearly 32,000 signatures, a quarter of the adult women, and its roll of paper was almost 300 metres long. In the election of November 1893, 65 per cent of eligible women voted. Women could not stand for Parliament until 1919. Other countries followed: Australia in 1902, Finland in 1906, Norway in 1913, and the United Kingdom partly in 1918.

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