Latest from History

Amazing feats of forgotten hero of the ice

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

Hilary Mantel - great literature or snobbish period soap operas?

Ed's house looks like home

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.

Where did I come from?

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

John Key reflects on Holocaust

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.

Darwin's forgotten rival

Alfred Russel Wallace is far from a household name, but he changed the world.

NZ woman who claims to have Ned Kelly's skull holds wake

An old wrong made right as Ned gets burial service

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

NZ, US attempted tsunami bomb

New Zealand and the United States conducted thousands of secret tests attempting to create a "tsunami bomb" during World War Two, a New Zealand author has claimed.

Message from beyond wave

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

Waimarama - a place of myth and Maori legend

The man who saved our coast

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".

Academic conspiracy claims rubbished

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

We survived doomsday

Mosquito makes big aviation crowd buzz

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.

Twelve Questions: Vicki Hyde

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.