The history of New Zealand.
According to legend, one guy called Maui decided to go fishing and he fished up an island. That island was New Zealand. But in real life, it probably split apart from Gondwana (when Pangea split up, there were two continents. One of them was Gondwana). Between 1250 and 1300, Polynesians arrived in New Zealand. New Zealand is one of the last major landmasses to have been discovered. After a few years, they decided to call themselves Maoris. They called the island Aoteaora. They also hunted moas. Moas were the largest birds in history, but they became extinct because of the Maoris.
The Maoris stayed in New Zealand for about 500 years. One day, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman found Aoteaora. He decided not to stop but he named it. New Zealand was the new name. If New Zealand is new, then where is old Zealand? Zealand is a province in the Netherlands. Then, in 1769, British captain James Cook landed in Poverty Bay, on the west coast of New Zealand. He decided to build towns and he eventually declares it a colony of the British crown. Nothing much happened until world war I. A lot of soldiers were sent to Europe to fight the Germans. Unfortunately, not much returned. New Zealand, still being a British colony, helped the allies fight the Japanese in the Second world war. Right after the war, New Zealand declared independence from the UK. They got it very peacefully. This leads us to today. Fun fact: there were no land animals in New Zealand before the Europeans arrived.
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