They should never have been on the bus. But a mix-up with their booking led to 36 people hopping aboard a dilapidated coach that would become a death-trap.

American author David Roberts is seeking to resurrect the achievements of a much lesser known explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson.

Sir Edmund Hillary's former house in Remuera is due to start a new life in May at the South Auckland school bearing his name.

Alan Perrott discovers once you start rattling around in the branches of your family tree, you never know what might be shaken loose.

Prime Minister John Key shared tales of his Jewish mother's escape from Nazi-controlled Austria at the United Holocaust Memorial Day event this morning.

More than 200 Kelly descendants, and dozens of public onlookers and regular churchgoers, attended the noon service dedicated to the bushranger at St Patrick's Church in the Victorian town of Wangaratta. The family will bury Kelly's bones in an unmarked gr

Former England captain Tony Greig, who died last week, wasn't just a renowned cricket commentator. He brought the panama hat back into wide view and reinvented the humble car key as a tool to measure pitch conditions.

A message in a bottle discovered floating on a beach 76 years after it was thrown into the ocean has led to more discoveries.

As we head for the beach this summer, thousands of us will visit historic areas, regional parks, islands, the coastlines and reserves of our "winterless north".

Historians are rubbishing claims by a Maori leader of an academic conspiracy around who the first people were to populate New Zealand.

The world's only flying De Havilland Mosquito proved to be a huge drawcard yesterday for hundreds of aviation enthusiasts who crowded the tarmac outside Classic Flyers to welcome an aircraft making its first and last visit to Tauranga.

It's the end of the world tomorrow, according to the Mayan calendar. Vicky Hyde, spokeswoman for the NZ Skeptics Society ponders what it all means and what she'd take to the bunker.

A colonial scrapbook and journal assembled by an officer who was at critical battles in New Zealand's early history go under the hammer next week.