The A to Z Challenge: Z is for Zealand
Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer who in 1642 became the first European known to have visited New Zealand. He named the land he had encountered “Staten Landt”, as […]
A to Z challenge
The A to Z Challenge: Y is for Year
Running a farm means working with the seasons. The particular shape of the farming year varied with different areas of the country and with the type of farm, but for […]
The A to Z Challenge: X is for X-Ray
Experimenters taking an X-ray with an early Crookes tube apparatus, 1896. (Note the lack of any precaution against exposure to the radiation.) The first medical X-rays were made in […]
The A to Z Challenge: W is for Washing
Wash day ‘Don’t go getting any ideas,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m too tired. It’s Monday, remember? The wife’s night off.’ —from Mud and Gold. She had earned her good night’s sleep. […]
The A to Z Challenge: V is for Voting
New Zealand’s first parliamentary election was in 1853. At the time it followed British tradition, with voting rights limited to males aged 21 or over and in possession of property […]
The A to Z Challenge: U is for Underwear
A weighty matter for today’s discussion. Let us draw a veil over the matter of men with their long-johns and woollen combinations, confining ourselves to ladies and their not-quite-unmentionables. Throughout […]
The A to Z Challenge: T is for Tarawera
Tarawera is a volcano near the North Island town of Rotorua. After being quiescent for centuries, it erupted in June of 1886, killing about 150 people (the exact death toll […]
The A to Z Challenge: S is for School
Primary school education was made free and compulsory in New Zealand in 1877. In practice this covered far fewer children than “compulsory” suggests. Parents were exempt from having to send […]
The A to Z Challenge: R is for Railway
In the early decades of European settlement in New Zealand, most travel of any distance was by water. Towns and villages grew up along the coast, or on navigable rivers, […]
The A to Z Challenge: Q is for Queen
Queen Victoria’s reign began in 1837, just a few years before New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, was signed. So her reign and the nation that was the […]