Nz History

For Anzac Day Māpuna takes a look back at a special episode from 2023 when producer Tama Muru visited the Greek island of Crete to delve into the history of the battle in 1941 which pitted New… Audio

From the 1840s onward, Frederick Maning would become an increasingly bitter and angry man who demonised Māori who opposed colonisation. So what explains this radical transition from a romantic early… Audio

Frederick Maning was one of the first Europeans to settle in Aotearoa, he married a high-ranking Ngāpuhi woman, and wrote two books filled with romantic anecdotes of his time living alongside Māori… Audio

New Zealanders like to think we have a “Number 8 Wire Mentality” - a rough and ready enthusiasm for fixing and building stuff with limited resources.  Video, Audio

Every Sunday at 6pm from 1977 huge numbers of New Zealanders would be glued to the television to watch A Dog's Show. Jesse talks to presenter John Gordon. Audio

A historian is concerned that drastic reductions in archive opening hours will make it harder for iwi to conduct crucial research.

From March 2nd, the reading room hours at Archives New Zealand will… Audio

Pākehā settlers in Taranaki knew John Bryce as "Honest John" but Taranaki Māori called him "Bryce Kōhuru" - Bryce the Murderer. In this episode of Black Sheep William Ray investigates the life of the… Audio

Kimble Bent was one of a tiny handful of Europeans who switched sides during the New Zealand Wars, who deserted the British army to join Maori "rebels" in Taranaki. RNZ's Black Sheep podcast tells the… Audio

Charlotte Badger was one of the first European women to live in New Zealand. She was also a pirate... or at least that's the traditional story. In this special episode of Black Sheep, recorded live at… Audio

Professor Dame Anne Salmond is New Zealand's foremost anthropologist. Her most recent book - Tears of Rangi: Experiments Across Worlds revisits some of those historical encounters but also looks at… Audio

In the 1880s Austrian naturalist and ethnographer Andreas Reischek stole four mummified Maori corpses and secretly smuggled them out of the country so they could be displayed at a museum in Vienna. He… Audio

Did you know that after the First World War New Zealand established an official eugenics board? We tend to think of eugenics as being something the Nazis invented but really it was embraced all around… Audio

Hongi Hika is a man with a difficult legacy. He's one of the greatest figures in New Zealand history, but he's also often held responsible for starting the Musket Wars. Audio

Arthur Worthington was a con artist who travelled the USA, marrying rich women then abandoning them and stealing all their money. Eventually with private detectives hot on his tail in 1890 he jumped… Audio

In 1916 John Cullen led a small army of police deep into the misty forests of Te Urewera to arrest the Tuhoe prophet Rua Kenana - his crime? Preaching that his followers shouldn't sign up to fight in… Audio

"Four shots, and then another one" - that's how the story of Alice Parkinson begins as the 25 year old waitress guns down her fiancé, Bert West, in the middle of Nelson street in Napier in 1915. The… Audio