Auckland

The Musket Wars

Musket-armed war parties reshaped the map of Māori New Zealand. Perhaps 20,000 died and whole districts changed hands before the fighting burned out around 1840.

New Zealand Constitution Act

Representative government arrived, divided into six provinces — and the property franchise excluded almost all Māori, who held land communally.

Settlers outnumber Māori

For the first time the European population passed the Māori population — about 59,000 settlers to 56,000 Māori, on a Māori population that had roughly halved since 1800.

New Zealand Settlements Act — raupatu

Te raupatu whenua

The Crown took roughly 1.2 million hectares from iwi deemed to be in rebellion — including from communities that had never fought.

The capital moves to Wellington

Australian commissioners were asked to pick a more central capital, and chose Wellington. Auckland was furious and briefly talked of separation.

Māori Representation Act

Four Māori seats were created as a temporary measure, giving Māori men the vote twelve years before all Pākehā men got it.

Vogel’s public works and immigration scheme

Julius Vogel borrowed £10 million in London to build railways, roads and telegraph lines, and to bring 100,000 assisted migrants.

The provinces are abolished

Nine provincial governments were swept away and replaced by central government plus counties and boroughs — the shape of local government for the next century.

Education Act — free, secular and compulsory

A national primary system, free and compulsory for children aged 7 to 13, and deliberately secular to sidestep sectarian argument.

The Liberals take power

The world’s first organised political party to hold national office began two decades of reform that made New Zealand a byword for social experiment.

Women win the vote

New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world where women could vote in national elections. Kate Sheppard’s third petition carried nearly 32,000 signatures.

Old-age pensions introduced

One of the first state pensions anywhere — means-tested, character-tested, and closed to Chinese and other Asian residents.

New Zealand troops sent to the South African War

The first overseas war New Zealand fought as a country: around 6,500 men and 8,000 horses, and 230 deaths.

New Zealand enters the First World War

About 100,000 served overseas from a population of just over a million. Around 18,000 died and 41,000 were wounded — proportionally among the heaviest losses of any country.

The Gallipoli landing

New Zealand troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April. Of about 14,000 who served there, 2,779 died. The date became the country’s day of remembrance.

Passchendaele — the worst day

An attack on Bellevue Spur in Flanders mud, against uncut wire and without effective artillery support, killed around 845 New Zealanders in a few hours.

The influenza pandemic

About 9,000 people died in two months — roughly half as many as died in four years of war. Māori died at more than seven times the Pākehā rate.

The first Labour government

Michael Joseph Savage led Labour to a landslide and built the welfare state: state houses, guaranteed prices, free health care and a 40-hour week.

Social Security Act

Free hospital care, subsidised doctors’ visits and universal benefits from cradle to grave — among the most comprehensive welfare systems in the world at the time.

New Zealand declares war on Germany

‘Where she goes, we go’ — 140,000 served overseas and nearly 12,000 died, from a population of 1.6 million.

Māori War Effort Organisation

More than 300 tribal committees organised recruitment, production and welfare — the most effective Māori self-administration the Crown had allowed since 1840.

American troops arrive

With Singapore fallen and Japan advancing, around 100,000 US servicemen passed through New Zealand — a social shock as much as a military one.

The great Māori urban migration

Māori went from about 25 percent urban in 1945 to nearly 80 percent by 1975 — one of the fastest urbanisations recorded anywhere.

Kayforce sent to Korea

About 4,700 New Zealanders served in Korea under the United Nations flag; 45 died. It was the country’s first UN commitment.

The 1951 waterfront dispute

Lockout and strike ran for 151 days. Emergency regulations made it a crime even to give food to a watersider’s children.

Edmund Hillary summits Everest

An Auckland beekeeper and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest, and the news arrived in London on the morning of the Queen’s coronation.

The 1953–54 royal tour

Elizabeth II became the first reigning monarch to visit New Zealand. An estimated three in four New Zealanders saw her in person.

No Maoris, No Tour

A petition of 162,000 signatures opposed sending an All Black team to South Africa with Māori players excluded. The tour went ahead anyway.

Western Samoa becomes independent

The first Pacific nation to regain independence in the twentieth century did so from New Zealand, ending 48 years of often harsh administration.

Decimal currency day

Pounds, shillings and pence became dollars and cents, promoted by a cartoon character called Mr Dollar and a jingle everyone remembers.

Ngā Tamatoa formed

A group of young urban Māori activists, many university-educated, began confronting the state over te reo, the Treaty and racism — loudly and publicly.

The Māori language petition

Te petihana reo Māori

Ngā Tamatoa and Te Reo Māori Society delivered a 30,000-signature petition asking for te reo to be taught in schools. The date is now Māori Language Day.

A frigate sails to Mururoa

Norman Kirk sent HMNZS Otago, with a cabinet minister aboard, to sit in the French nuclear test zone in protest.

The Māori land march

Te Rōpū o te Matakite

Whina Cooper, aged 79, led a month-long hīkoi from Te Hāpua in the far north to Parliament under the slogan ‘not one more acre’.

The Erebus disaster

An Air New Zealand sightseeing flight to Antarctica flew into Mount Erebus in whiteout conditions. All 257 people aboard died.

The Springbok tour

Fifty-six days that split the country. Protesters occupied the pitch at Hamilton and stopped the game; by the final test, police in riot gear fought crowds outside Eden Park.

Rogernomics — the economy is deregulated

A Labour government floated the dollar, removed farm subsidies and tariffs, and sold state assets — the fastest liberalisation in the developed world.

Homosexual Law Reform Act

Sex between men over 16 was decriminalised, after a sixteen-month campaign and one of the most vitriolic public debates in modern New Zealand.

New Zealand becomes nuclear free

Legislation banned nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered ships from New Zealand waters, effectively ending the ANZUS alliance with the United States.

Te reo Māori becomes an official language

Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori

Te reo Māori gained official status and the right to be spoken in court, fifteen years after the language petition and following a Waitangi Tribunal finding that it was a taonga.

The 1987 sharemarket crash

The New Zealand market fell further than almost any other and took years longer to recover, wiping out a generation of small investors.

New Zealand votes for MMP

By 54 to 46 percent, voters replaced first-past-the-post with mixed-member proportional representation — largely as a punishment for a decade of unmandated reform.

The first MMP election

The first proportional Parliament took nine weeks of negotiation to produce a government, and looked more like the country than any before it.

Helen Clark elected Prime Minister

Labour returned in coalition, closing the century with the first woman elected to the office rather than appointed to it.