New Zealand has had some big ambitions in the Pacific and mixed relations with our neighbours.

 Season 2 Ep 14: New Zealand's Pacific Empire

Why isn’t New Zealand part of Australia? | The Aotearoa History Show | RNZ

Season 2 Ep 13: Why isn't New Zealand part of Australia?

We all know New Zealand was the first country in the world where women could vote. But do you know how we got there? The path to suffrage is littered with alcohol, hidden heroes &amp; dirty tricks

Season 2 Ep 12: Women's Suffrage

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.

Season 2 Ep 11: Number 8 Wire

From a standing start of little tank engines chugging along wooden rails, New Zealand built a vast rail network, made up of enough steel rail to wrap halfway around the moon.

Season 2 Ep 10: NZ Railways

Marine mammals were a source of food and clothing for Māori and Moriori, and valuable oil for Europeans. Hunting them brought cultures together, made fortunes and cost lives but today it's saving them that unites people.

Season 2 Ep 9: Whaling & Sealing

These are the wars that cost more lives than any other in our history. Stretched over more than a decade &amp; the entire country, these conflicts changed Māori warfare &amp; much of what came next.

Season 2 Ep 8: The Musket Wars

Moriori are the original people of Rēkohu (aka Chatham Island or Wharekauri) &amp; they have a tragic and inspiring story. Unfortunately, that story's often been twisted into, well, utter rubbish.

Season 2 Ep 7: Moriori

In 1841 a few tiny islands of Pākehā settlement existed in an ocean of Māori land. Today, that picture has reversed &amp; Māori own a fraction of Aotearoa. A big part of the reason? The Native Land Court.

Season 2 Ep 6: Native Land Court

The discovery of gold drew tens of thousands to New Zealand in search of fortune. It was a hard life, but diggers brought mateship, fashion &amp; egalitarian ideas that changed the country forever.

Season 2 Ep 5: The Gold Rushes

The story of New Zealand and its people from its geological origins to modern day, hosted by William Ray, Māni Dunlop &amp; Leigh-Marama McLachlan, with animation by Chris Maguren.

New Zealanders have battled Covid-19 for more than two years, but if you think it's the first time disease has knocked us around, well, this one's for you. Epidemics have long been part of our story.

Season 2 Ep 4: Epidemics

The 1950s saw an explosion of youth culture. “Bodgies and widgies' ' tearing round on motorbikes &amp; hanging out in milk bars scandalised many Kiwi adults. Was “the teenager” invented in the 1950s? And what is a “milk bar” anyway?

Season 2 Ep 3: Teenagers

The first 500 years of Māori settlement in Aotearoa saw significant, dynamic changes to how people lived; changes that challenge the idea of Māori culture as something carved in stone.

Season 2 Ep 2: Māori: The First 500 Years

No-one knows for sure who first introduced rabbits to New Zealand, because no-one wanted to take the blame for what became one of New Zealand's biggest environmental and economic disasters. We start season two burrowing into the devastating history of rabbits and other pests.

Season 2 Ep 1: Rabbits & other Pests

It’s the final episode of the Aotearoa History Show! Rogernomics, Ruthanasia and the referendum on MMP saw the total restructuring of our economy and voting system. Plus a snapshot of the changing demographics of Aotearoa/New Zealand, the growth of dairy and tourism and the challenges still to come.

14: Modern New Zealand

The 60s, 70s and 80s were rowdy decades. Kiwis were getting out in the streets and raising their voices about the rights of Māori, women and LGBT people, nuclear energy, the environment. Plus the most controversial sporting event in our history: The 1981 Springbok Tour.

13: Decades of Change

After the war came a new quest for security and identity. With it came new political debates and alliances. Maori and Pasifika moved to the cities. The way we viewed ourselves as a nation was changing.

12: Post-War New Zealand 

A second world war swept the globe, dragging New Zealand once more onto the battlefield, this time in the Pacific as well as Europe. In the likes of Crete, Greece and North Africa and on Pacific islands Kiwis served and died. At home, women joined those in reserved occupations to support the war effort until finally the Axis powers were defeated.

11: The Second World War

With World War I and the flu epidemic past, the good times rolled through the 1920s. Then came the bust of the Great Depression, prompting widespread poverty - that was worse for some - and the rise of the first Labour government.

10: Boom & Bust

It’s the war that claimed more New Zealand lives than any other. It’s also the event that’s often claimed as the "foundational moment” where we “became a nation”. But is that really true? In this episode we take a dive into the First World War. Why we fought, what it cost us, and its long-term effects on Kiwi identity.

9: The First World War

The Aotearoa History Show

As British troops leave, settler militia enter the fray. Some Māori chose to fight alongside the Crown while others join new religious movements, which seem to promise a way out of the conflict.

6: New Zealand Wars (Part 2)

Hunger for land and the rise of Kingitanga prompted Governor George Grey to invade Waikato in 1863. Fighting spread over years and into the Bay of Plenty, devastating Maori. But it was not as one-sided as the British had expected.

5: New Zealand Wars (Part 1)

Around 850 years ago Polynesian explorers found an empty land and the story of people in Aotearoa began. A new culture emerged; tangata whenua had arrived and started to thrive.

2: Tangata Whenua

In Europe, factions debated the future of Aotearoa, while Māori had their own ideas how to handle the growing number of Pākehā here. In the end, Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed, but the early promise leads ultimately to war.

4: Te Tiriti o Waitangi

After the wars, politicians had to figure out how to run the new country. Bold choices saw huge spending on infrastructure, the right of women to vote and the start of refrigeration, helping us out of The Long Depression. A new politics arose but old values remained.

7: Votes, Depressions & Refrigerators

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