Warning: include(header.inc) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/unbrokenorg/un-broken.org/newzealand/about/facts.php on line 2
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'header.inc' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php:/usr/local/php5/lib/pear') in /home/unbrokenorg/un-broken.org/newzealand/about/facts.php on line 2
For a country of 3.85 million people, New Zealand has not done too badly! Here are just a few examples:
- New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote (1893).
- It was probably a New Zealander, Richard William Pearse who took the
world's first flight -nearly two years before the Wright Brothers in the
United States (this however cannot be proved). On 31 March 1902 Pearse
managed to fly his home-made aircraft 91 metres in a field near Timaru.
- There are more golf courses in New Zealand per capita of population, than
any other country in the world (over 400 golf courses for 3.7 million
people).
- Auckland has the largest number of boats per head of population than any
other city in the world.
- William Hamilton, a Canterbury farmer, developed and perfected the
propellerless jet boat based on the principle of water jet propulsion.
Following this, Hamilton went on to invent the hay-lift, an advanced air
compressor, an advanced air conditioner, a machine to smooth ice on skating
ponds; the water sprinkler and also contributed to the improvements of
hydro-power.
- A New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, was the first person to climb Mount
Everest (with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953).
- Baron Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealander, was the first person in the
world to split the atom (in 1919). Rutherford also succeeded in transmitting
and detecting ´wireless waves' a year before Marconi, but left this work
to pursue researching radioactivity and the structure of the atom at Trinity
College in Cambridge, England. Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize for
his work
- New Zealand is the first country in the world to see each new day.
- Curio Bay in Southland is one of the world's most extensive and least
disturbed examples of a petrified forest, (the forest is approximately 180
million years old).
- New Zealand was the first country in the world to have a government department for
tourism. In 1901 the Department of Tourist and Health Resorts was created.
- Wellington has more cafes and restaurants per capita than New York.
- New Zealand is the birthplace of the meringue dessert known as the ´Pavlova',
named after the famous ballerina Anna Pavlova.
- The old Government Building in Wellington is the largest wooden structure
in the southern hemisphere (8200 square metres).
- The vineyards of Central Otago, New Zealand, are the southern most
vineyards in the world (45° South).
- Nelson was the first city in the world to formalise the eight-hour working
day.
- New Zealand won the first ever Rugby World Cup in 1987. The New Zealand
Women's Rugby Team won the Women's Rugby World Cup in 1998.
- Tongariro National Park was the fourth national park to be
established in the world and the first in New Zealand, in 1887. (Yellowstone
National Park in the United States was the first in 1872.)
- The Hector's Dolphin (the world's smallest marine dolphin), and the
world's rarest sea lion, the Hooker's sea lion, are only found in New
Zealand waters.
- New Zealand is home to the world's only flightless parrot, the Kakapo,
as well as the Kea - the only alpine parrot in the world.
- The oldest living genus of reptile is the native New Zealand Tuatara.
Tuataras have a life expectancy of 300 years. It is estimated that Tuataras
can be traced back 190 million years to the Mesozoic era.
- A New Zealander invented the tear back velcro-strip, the pop-lid on a self
sealing paint tin, the child-proof pill bottle and the crinkle in your
hairpins so that they don't fall out!
- A New Zealand archbishop's son invented the totaliser machine used for
racing and sports betting.
- Waikoropupu Springs near Nelson are reputedly the clearest fresh water
springs in the world, with an outflow of approximately 2,160 million litres
of water every 24 hours.
- Frying Pan Lake near Rotorua, is the world's largest hot water spring
reaching a temperature of 200°C at it's deepest point.
« back
Warning: include(footer.inc) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/unbrokenorg/un-broken.org/newzealand/about/facts.php on line 72
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'footer.inc' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php:/usr/local/php5/lib/pear') in /home/unbrokenorg/un-broken.org/newzealand/about/facts.php on line 72