The Aotearoa History Show

New Zealand has had some big ambitions in the Pacific and mixed relations with our neighbours. Read more Video, Audio

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

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NOTE: This episode has been reuploaded to correct some inaccuracies in the original version. We all know New Zealand was the first country in the world where women could vote. But do you know how we… Read more Video, 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.  Read more Video, Audio

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. Read more Video, Audio

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… Read more Video, Audio

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

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

In 1841 a few tiny islands of Pākehā settlement existed in an ocean of Māori land. Today, that picture has reversed & Māori own a fraction of Aotearoa. A big part of the reason? The 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 & egalitarian ideas that changed the country forever. Read more Video, Audio

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. 

The 1950s saw an explosion of youth culture. “Bodgies and widgies' ' tearing round on motorbikes & hanging out in milk bars scandalised many Kiwi adults. Was “the teenager” invented in the 1950s? And… Read more Video, Audio

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. Read more Video, Audio

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… Read more Video, Audio

The Aotearoa History Show is back with 14 new episodes diving deep into some of the key issues, events and characters that helped shaped our country. Read more Video

RNZ presents The Aotearoa History Show - this time as an audio only podcast! Read more Audio

Before people there was the land. We start the story of New Zealand 100 million years ago as tectonic forces tear apart Gondwana and Zealandia/Te Riu-a-Maiu is formed.  Read more Audio

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. Read more Audio

Abel Tasman and James Cook’s first contacts with Māori were complex and sometimes violent. Europeans brought new technologies, food and ideas, such as muskets, potatoes and Christianity. In some cases… Read more Audio

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… Read more Audio

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… Read more Audio

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.  Read more Audio

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… Read more Audio

Through the final quarter of the 19th Century Pakeha settler numbers swelled. The immigrants sought land and started to create a new, distinct culture. But their land gain came at the cost of Maori… Read more Audio

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… Read more Audio

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… Read more Audio

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… Read more Audio

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… Read more Audio

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… Read more Audio

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… Read more Audio