40 Fun Facts About New Zealand History

What did a low-flying Cessna drop on the Eden Park pitch during the 1981 Springbok tour's final test?

Flour bombs rained onto the pitch from a Cessna 172 piloted by Marx Jones and Grant Cole on 12 September 1981, yet the test was played to a finish. Outside the ground, clashes produced 201 arrests and more than 90 injuries.

Which organisation's flagship Rainbow Warrior was sunk by French agents in Auckland harbour in July 1985?

Greenpeace had owned the Rainbow Warrior since 1977, and it was bound for a protest against a French nuclear test when two DGSE operatives sank it, drowning photographer Fernando Pereira. France later apologised and paid reparations.

News that Hillary and Tenzing had climbed Everest reached Britain on the day of which 1953 event?

The Queen's coronation on 2 June 1953 shared the headlines with the Everest news, which the press hailed as a coronation gift. Hillary was knighted four days later, on 6 June.

In which architectural style was Napier rebuilt after the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake devastated the town?

Art Deco was at its fashionable peak when Napier rebuilt in the 1930s, and the quake also lifted the Ahuriri Lagoon by more than 2.7 metres, draining land that is now Hawke's Bay Airport. The official death toll was 256.

What swept away a rail bridge over the Whangaehu River at Tangiwai on Christmas Eve 1953, killing 151 people?

A volcanic lahar from Mount Ruapehu's Crater Lake destroyed a bridge pier only minutes before the Wellington–Auckland express arrived, though the volcano was not erupting. The Queen was in the country on her first royal tour.

Edmund Hillary's team reached the South Pole overland in January 1958 driving what unlikely vehicles?

Farm tractors, three converted Ferguson TE20s, carried Hillary's party across the Polar Plateau while laying supply depots for Vivian Fuchs's Commonwealth crossing. It was the first overland arrival at the Pole since Scott in 1912.

New Zealand declined to join which neighbour's 1901 federation, instead becoming a separate dominion in 1907?

Australia's federation went ahead without New Zealand, which took dominion status by proclamation of Edward VII on 26 September 1907, a title its leaders hoped would remind the world it was not part of Australia.

David Lange told a televised 1985 debate 'I can smell the uranium on it as you lean towards me' at which society?

The Oxford Union debate of 1 March 1985, on the motion that nuclear weapons are morally indefensible, won Lange an extraordinary international reputation, and he called it the high point of his political career.

Which defence treaty did the United States suspend toward New Zealand after it refused the USS Buchanan in 1985?

ANZUS obligations to New Zealand were suspended by Washington, which regarded the 1987 Nuclear Free Zone Act as a breach of the treaty; Lange had rejected the Buchanan visit on the advice of acting prime minister Geoffrey Palmer.

New Zealand lost its biggest export market in 1973 when Britain joined which organisation?

The EEC, forerunner of the European Union, admitted Britain in 1973, and Britain then abrogated its preferential trade agreements with New Zealand, forcing the country to hunt for new markets in the same year as the oil shock.

In which country were New Zealand's troops training when the Anzac corps was formed before Gallipoli?

Egypt hosted the New Zealand Expeditionary Force's camps while it trained for France, and there the Anzac corps was formed under Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood before it sailed for the Dardanelles.

New Zealand's first military action of the First World War, on 29 August 1914, occupied which German colony?

Samoa's German governor said there would be no resistance to a landing, and New Zealand went on to govern the islands from 1920 until Samoan independence in 1962, first under a League of Nations mandate.

Which Antarctic volcano did Air New Zealand Flight 901 fly into on a sightseeing trip in November 1979?

Mount Erebus on Ross Island claimed all 237 passengers and 20 crew, and Justice Peter Mahon's inquiry accused Air New Zealand of 'an orchestrated litany of lies' over a flight-path change the crew were never told about.

Which West Coast coal mine exploded in November 2010, trapping and killing 29 men underground?

Pike River, 46 km northeast of Greymouth, suffered a methane explosion at about 3:44 pm on 19 November 2010, and the disaster led to the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 and the creation of WorkSafe New Zealand.

The 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera is blamed for destroying which natural wonder, then New Zealand's top tourist draw?

Pink and White Terraces, two sinter staircases on the shores of Lake Rotomahana, vanished in the eruption, which killed an estimated 120 people and blanketed nearby villages such as Te Wairoa in ash.

The Māori and English texts of the Treaty of Waitangi differ most sharply over the ceding of what?

Sovereignty, in 'all the rights and powers' of it, is what the English text cedes to the Crown, while the Māori text grants kāwanatanga, translated by Hugh Kāwharu as complete governance, a gap that still clouds the treaty's meaning.

What name was given to the 1970s police operations that hunted Pacific Island overstayers in their homes?

Dawn raids fell on Pacific Islanders far out of proportion: they were about one-third of overstayers but 86% of those arrested and prosecuted, and in August 2021 Jacinda Ardern formally apologised on behalf of the government.

What did James Cook name the bay near today's Gisborne where he first landed in October 1769?

Poverty Bay got its name because Cook could obtain few of the provisions his crew needed there beyond some herbs against scurvy; his first choice of name, before a skirmish killed a local man, had been Endeavour Bay.

Who aboard Cook's Endeavour first sighted New Zealand in 1769, earning two gallons of rum and a headland's name?

A 12-year-old boy, Nicholas Young, assistant to the ship's surgeon, was first to see land, and Cook named Young Nick's Head near Gisborne after him. The reward had been promised to whichever crewman spotted the coast.

Which Ngāpuhi chief met George IV in England and swapped the gifts he received for hundreds of muskets?

Hongi Hika exchanged many of his English presents for muskets in New South Wales, to the missionaries' dismay, then used the guns to overrun much of the north in the Musket Wars of the early nineteenth century.

Which missionary preached the first known Christian sermon on New Zealand soil, at Oihi Bay on Christmas Day 1814?

Samuel Marsden raised the Union Jack over Oihi Bay before preaching to a 400-strong Māori congregation, with the chief Ruatara explaining the parts they did not understand; the party had sailed from Sydney on Marsden's brig Active.

Which Ngāpuhi chief cut down the British flagstaff at Kororāreka for the fourth time in March 1845, starting a war?

Hōne Heke had originally given the flagstaff to the British as a gift, and after the second felling the Stars and Stripes flew from the carved sternpost of his war canoe, a nod to the American War of Independence that inspired him.

Which governor ordered the invasion of the Waikato in July 1863 after Kīngitanga Māori refused his oath of allegiance?

George Grey used the Kingites' rejection of his 9 July 1863 ultimatum, that Māori between Auckland and the Waikato swear allegiance to Queen Victoria or be expelled south, as his trigger for the invasion.

At which pā near Tauranga did the British suffer their most devastating defeat of the New Zealand Wars, in April 1864?

Gate Pā cost the British 31 killed and 80 wounded on 29 April 1864 despite outnumbering their Māori foe, and the garrison slipped away that night through the lines of the 68th Regiment. Seven weeks later the troops took revenge at Te Ranga.

Te Whiti and Tohu led non-violent resistance from which Taranaki village, invaded by 1,600 troops in November 1881?

Parihaka's people had ploughed settlers' farmland and fenced roads to assert rights over confiscated land; after the invasion Te Whiti and Tohu were jailed for 16 months and 1,600 inhabitants were expelled without food or shelter.

Who found gold in a creek bed in a gully near Lawrence, setting off the Otago gold rush in May 1861?

Gabriel Read, a prospector who had hunted gold in California and Victoria, struck it near the Tuapeka River in May 1861, and by Christmas 14,000 diggers were on the Tuapeka and Waipori fields, making Dunedin the largest city.

What did the Chinese Immigrants Act 1881 impose on each Chinese person entering New Zealand, apologised for in 2002?

A £10 poll tax per Chinese migrant came with a rule allowing only one Chinese immigrant for every 10 tons of cargo; a century later, in 2002, the government apologised to Chinese New Zealanders for the tax levied on their ancestors.

Which Bay of Islands settlement served as New Zealand's first capital from 1840 until the move to Auckland in 1841?

Okiato, now called Old Russell, was chosen by Hobson, who moved his family there in May 1840; a year later, when New Zealand became a colony separate from New South Wales, he shifted the capital to Auckland.

Which premier, nicknamed 'King Dick', died of a heart attack at sea in 1906 after thirteen years in office?

Richard Seddon remains New Zealand's longest-serving head of government, and he died aboard the Oswestry Grange on 10 June 1906, sailing home across the Tasman, after resting his head on his wife's shoulder and saying 'Oh, mother'.

Which prime minister helped a family carry their furniture into the first of his government's state houses in Miramar?

Michael Joseph Savage, who led the First Labour Government from 1935 until his death in office in 1940, also pushed through the 1938 Social Security Act with its free health system and universal superannuation from age 65.

Which Gallipoli summit did the Wellington Battalion reach early on 8 August 1915, only for it to be lost two days later?

Chunuk Bair's first occupiers were severely depleted by Ottoman return fire, and after the New Zealanders were relieved, British battalions were massacred and driven off the summit on 10 August by a counter-attack led by Mustafa Kemal.

Which walled French town did New Zealand troops liberate on 4 November 1918 by scaling its ramparts with a ladder?

Le Quesnoy fell after a party led by Second Lieutenant Leslie Averill climbed the old fortress walls by the mill sluicegate, a week before the Armistice; the town's New Zealand museum is named Te Arawhata, 'The Ladder'.

Bernard Freyberg led the Allied defence of which Mediterranean island against German airborne landings in May 1941?

Crete saw the first mainly airborne invasion in military history, beginning on 20 May 1941, with Freyberg's Creforce built around the 2nd New Zealand Division alongside British and Commonwealth brigades.

Which prime minister, visibly drunk on live television, called a snap election for 14 July 1984 and lost it?

Robert Muldoon's 14 June 1984 announcement handed Labour a landslide under David Lange; historians noted the unfortunate coincidence of polling day with Bastille Day. His Think Big projects and wage-price freezes had defined his nine years.

Which finance minister gave his name to the free-market reforms of New Zealand's 1984–88 Labour government?

Roger Douglas's 'Rogernomics', a coinage modelled on Reaganomics, brought a 20% devaluation, a floating exchange rate, corporatised state businesses and the removal of farm subsidies; he went on to co-found the ACT Party in 1993.

Which voting system, used for most of New Zealand's history, did voters reject for MMP in 1992 and 1993 referendums?

First past the post, a simple plurality system, gave way to mixed-member proportional representation at the 1996 election, and voters chose to keep MMP again in a 2011 referendum.

Who became New Zealand's first woman prime minister in December 1997 after Jim Bolger resigned rather than be voted out?

Jenny Shipley, who had chafed at the government's slow pace, convinced her National colleagues to back her as leader; she was also the first woman to lead the National Party and served until 1999.

After nine years as prime minister, Helen Clark left Parliament in 2009 to become the first woman to head which body?

UN Development Programme administrator was Clark's role from 2009 to 2017, two four-year terms, after which she was succeeded by Achim Steiner. She had been the 37th prime minister, serving from 1999 to 2008.

Which Auckland headland did Māori protesters occupy for 506 days until 800 police and soldiers cleared it in May 1978?

Bastion Point's occupation began on 5 January 1977, two days before building was due to start on Crown land at Ōrākei that the government planned to sell for high-income housing; the eviction destroyed the marae and vegetable gardens.

Which prime minister sent the frigates Otago and Canterbury into the French nuclear test zone at Mururoa in 1973?

Norman Kirk's government had also taken France to the International Court of Justice in 1972 over the tests; he died suddenly in office in August 1974, aged 51, and was succeeded by Bill Rowling.