Today in history

1897 - After the passage of the Female Law Practitioners Act

1896, Ethel Benjamin became the first woman to be admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. 1915 - Canadian physician Cluny Macpherson first presents his gas mask invention to the British War Office; Zeppelin drops hundred of bombs on Southend-on-sea, Essex, England.

1917 - Atlantic ships get destroyer escorts to stop German attacks. 1918 - HMS Vindictive sunk to block entrance of Ostend Harbour. 1925 - Irish-born William Ferguson Massey, or ‘Farmer Bill’ as he was known to many, dies. He was NZ’S 19th prime minister.

1940 - Nazi Germany invades the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France; Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister; The first German bombs of the war fall on England at Chilham and Petham, in Kent. 1941 - Adolf Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess escapes to Britain to open secret negotiations with the Allies, parachuting into Scotland.

1960 - All-white All Blacks leave for South Africa, despite protests, on their controversial rugby tour. The issue of sporting ties with South Africa would eventually split the country in 1981.