New Zealand women win the vote

After years of petitions led by Kate Sheppard and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the last in 1893 signed by nearly 32,000 women, the Governor gave assent to the Electoral Act on 19 September 1893. New Zealand became the first self-governing country where women could vote in national elections, and they did so that November. Women could not stand for Parliament until 1919.