Winston Churchill was Prime Minister and Queen Elizabeth II had not long been crowned when Wales last beat the All Blacks in 1953.
Respected rugby commentator Huw Llywelyn Davies attended the match aged eight with his father, who wrote for the Welsh weekly Baner ac Amserau Cymru.
“I never thought this would happen again, unless I lived to be 100,” an emotional Davies, now 81, said as he walked away from the media seats inside Principality Stadium.
“With everything that’s happened in Welsh rugby recently, I didn’t think we were going to beat them this decade, but the way we took on them physically was incredible.”
Wales had only come close a few times with one-point defeats in 1978, when New Zealand second row Andy Haden dived out of a lineout to win a winning penalty, and again in 2004.
Wales even turned to four New Zealand coaches, Sir Graham Henry, Steve Hansen, Gatland and Wayne Pivac, to help them break the hoodoo, but none of the quartet could inspire a Test victory over their country of birth.
So there will be added satisfaction that it was a Welshman who masterminded the long-awaited victory.
Steve Tandy’s team may not have the household names of teams of the past, nor the pedigree of winners, but they had courage when it was necessary.
Three times they waved black shirts over the try line during a second-half defensive effort that was at times beyond belief.
Early statistics show second row Dafydd Jenkins equals Thierry Dusautoir’s world record of 38 tackles in a single match, also set against New Zealand in 2007.
Jac Morgan and man of the match James Botham also made 30 tackles, while center Eddie James and captain Dewi Lake were not far behind.
He received praise from former New Zealand captain Sean Fitzpatrick.
A winner in all six games against Wales, the ex-hooker has links to that day seven decades ago when his father Brian made his New Zealand debut.
Observers say he was unlucky not to get a try after being tackled just short of the line. How different the story could have been.
“New Zealand have played well at times and terrible at others, but it’s all about Wales,” said Fitzpatrick, now a board member of the Scarlets’ Welsh region.
“The way they started the game and performed their tries showed the incredible confidence they had. But the defensive effort was out of this world.”
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