Jean Francois Marie de Surville is a French explorer (all French explorers have long names). He is looking for a fabled rich Pacific Island in 1769 (Tahiti), when he goes south from the Solomon Islands, becomes caught in a storm, and decides to try to find Tasman’s squiggly line
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When Great Britain emerged blinking from the rubble of the Second World War it was a nation hugely in debt and on the brink of a silent social revolution. The country’s war debt to the United States was in the order of $3.7 billion, and despite Harold Macmillan’
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This is a speech that Peter Brown MBE gave about 26 years ago in his capacity as Mayor of the Kaipara District Council. It was made at the ANZAC Day service in Dargaville. The Patriotic Fund mentioned was used to fund aide for servicemen and returned servicemen. Peter Brown MBE,
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Trooper Tom, 50060, from West Melton had a vision; it was his brother Jim, his younger by three years and 364 days. Jim was in uniform, he was soaking wet, he didn’t say, or do, anything, he simply vanished almost as instantly as he’d appeared, leaving Tom with
Sailing east from there, Tasman sights the west coast of yet another unknown land on 13 December 1642. It’s the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand, somewhere in the vicinity of Hokitika and Perpendicular Point (“a large, high-flying land” 171oE, 42oS). Tasman sails north along
For an officially atheist nation, the Chinese seem to be about the most superstitious folk on the face of the planet. Maybe it’s not the “sorcerers stole our penises” craziness that periodically leads to dozens of lynchings by angry (presumably penis-less – or did they get better?) mobs in
Mark How is it that people throughout history have allowed themselves to be conned into following ideas that have devastated their nations? Let’s have a look at one way that can happen. Imagine I am a high school social studies teacher (or whatever it is called now), and I
Stuff, yesterday morning, congratulated us all on getting through and advised us, for posterity, “It may pay to jot down a few notes – send yourself an email…because memory fades.” It certainly does, especially when left-wash is happening right in front of our eyes. They are rewriting everything ‘Dear
During lockdown, we’ve all had to find new ways to keep ourselves amused and entertained. I have to admit that the daily commute between bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and lounge started to lose its appeal after about three days though it’s a relief knowing I can leave the bar
In October 1347, three ships arrived in the Italian port of Genoa. One chronicler wrote ominously, “it was as if they had brought evil spirits with them”. The Bubonic plague had arrived in Europe. Within just a few years, a quarter to half of the European population had died. But
