New Zealand History Quiz — 7 Free Questions

Question 1

Which 1894 law made New Zealand the first country with a compulsory state system for settling industrial disputes?

Question 2

Which 1863 Act let the government confiscate huge areas of Maori land after the wars?

Question 3

Which ship carried James Cook to New Zealand on his first Pacific voyage in 1769?

Question 4

When did an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight crash into Mount Erebus in Antarctica, killing all 257 aboard?

Question 5

Which fortified Ngapuhi position, taken by British and Maori forces in January 1846, ended the Northern War?

Question 6

Which bird of prey, the largest known to have existed, hunted the moa and died out soon after they were gone?

Question 7

Which theorist of systematic colonisation was the guiding force behind the New Zealand Company?

📚 All Quizzes

Browse every category and see the full list of quizzes on BriskQuiz

→

About New Zealand History

How well do you know the history of New Zealand, Aotearoa? This quiz runs from the Polynesian voyagers who settled the last large land on earth, through the arrival of Tasman and Cook, the musket wars, the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the New Zealand Wars and land confiscation, the Liberal reforms and votes for women, Gallipoli and the trenches, the welfare state, and the modern country of the nuclear-free stand, the Waitangi Tribunal, MMP and Jacinda Ardern. One hundred and ten questions in five packs of twenty-two.

Every question is written the way people actually ask: who signed the Treaty of Waitangi, when did women get the vote, where did New Zealand troops land in 1915, which battle is remembered as a stand against the odds, why did Tasman not go ashore. The answer is one of four choices of the same kind, a person, a place, a year, an event or an outcome, and the question never contains it. A short note after each answer gives the background: the date, the people, the causes and the consequences.

The first pack covers Maori settlement and early European contact, ending with the musket wars and the missionaries. The second runs from the 1835 Declaration of Independence through the Treaty of Waitangi, the New Zealand Company, the Northern War and the gold rushes. The third covers the New Zealand Wars, land confiscation, the Native Land Court, the Kingitanga and Parihaka. The fourth covers the Liberal era, womens suffrage, Dominion status and the First World War. The fifth covers modern New Zealand from the first Labour government to the present.

About a fifth of the questions carry a photograph linked to the subject of the question but not showing the answer, a portrait, a monument, a canoe or a historic scene. Every fact has been checked, and the tone is kept even-handed, especially on the Treaty, the wars and their long aftermath.