Populated
by the Polynesian Maori people since
at least 1000 AD, the first European contact was in 1642 when the
Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted
the land.
Captain
James Cook
explored the islands in 1769 but unlike Australia the land was never
used as a penal colony and it was only after it was named a British
colony in 1840 that large-scale emigration from Europe began to take
place. This increased dramatically after the discovery of gold in
1861, an influx of people which lead to conflict between the settlers
and the native population.
The
molecular biologist Maurice
Wilkins was born in Pongoroa in 1916 and his family
emigrated to England when he was still a child. In 1962 he shared
the Nobel
Prize for Physiology or Medicine with the English scientist
Francis H.C. Crick and the American James D. Watson for their
ground breaking research into DNA which lead to the discovery
of its double helix structure. He and Crick both died in 2004.
In 1990 the Tongariro
National Park was designated a World
Heritage Site by the UNESCO. The area has special cultural and
religious relevance for the native Maori people.
In 1990 the Te
Wahipouramu Area in south-west New Zealand
was designated a World Heritage Site. The area encompasses three National
Parks; Westland
Tai Poutini, the adjacent park of Aoraki
Mount Cook and Fiordland
which were all previously entered on the UNESCO list in 1986.
Made up of five island groups south-east of New Zealand, the Sub-Antarctic
Islands were designated a World Heritage
Site in 1988.
Writers
and Poets
The
short story writer Katherine Mansfield
was born as Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp in Wellington in 1888. Having
been educated in London she emigrated to England at the age of nineteen
to follow a career as a writer.