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The Wairau Affray, on 17 June 1843, was the first serious clash of arms between Māori and the British settlers in New Zealand after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and the only one to take place in the South Island
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The 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera occurred in the early hours of 10 June 1886 in the North Island near Rotorua. It is the deadliest eruption in New Zealand since the arrival of Europeans. Around 120 people were killed, and many settlements were destroyed, or buried in the ash.
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SS Ventnor was a steamer built in Glasgow in 1901. It sank off New Zealand in 1902, leading to the deaths of 13 crew and the loss of 499 bodies of gold miners which were being repatriated to southern China.
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The Gallipoli campaign was a military campaign in the First World War that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula, from 17 February 1915 to 9 January 1916. By the time the campaign ended, more than 130,000 men had died, including more than 8700 Australians and 2779 New Zealanders. More than a 1/6 of those who went to Gallipoli died.
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The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, was an unusually deadly pandemic caused by a virus. Lasting from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people about a third of the world's population at the time in four waves.
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The 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, also known as the Napier earthquake, occurred in New Zealand at 10:47 am on 3 February, killing 256, and injuring thousands.The earthquake caused a moderate tsunami, devastating the Hawke's Bay region. It remains New Zealand's deadliest natural disaster.
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The Strongman Mine was an underground coal mine north of Greymouth, that occurred from 1938 to 2003. On 19 January 1967 a gas explosion in the mine killed 19 miners. And in 1994 the original mine was replaced by the Strongman 2 mine, which was closed in 2003.
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On Tuesday, 18 November 1947, a fire engulfed Ballantynes department store in central Christchurch. 41 people died; 39 employees and two auditors, who found themselves trapped by the fire, and were overcome by smoke while evacuating the store without a fire alarm or evacuation plan. Even though the fire department had been called, they didn't arrive until half and hour after the fire had spread,which caused the fire to be a lot more devastating.
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The Tangiwai disaster occurred at 10:21 p.m. on 24 December 1953 when the Whangaehu River bridge collapsed beneath the Wellington-to-Auckland express passenger train at Tangiwai. The first six carriages derailed into the river, killing 151 people
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The sinking of the Wellington ferry Wahine on 10 April 1968 was New Zealand's worst modern disaster. The Wahine was built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan, Glasgow, Scotland. Fifty-one people lost their lives that day, with many injuries.
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The 1968 Inangahua earthquake struck 25 kilometres west of Murchison, New Zealand, near the small town of Inangahua Junction at 5:24 am on 24 May 1968. It resulted in the deaths of three people, with a further 14 people injured, making it the fifth deadliest earthquake in New Zealand's recorded history.
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The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, was a bombing operation by the branch of the French foreign intelligence services, carried out on 10 July 1985. Retaliation for protests by Greenpeace against French nuclear testing, gave reason for the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior. The bombing resulted in the ship being sunk, and 1 person killed.