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New Zealand was discovered
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Many thousands of Māori died in the intertribal Musket Wars between the 1810s and the 1830s.
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Growing lawlessness among Europeans in New Zealand and fears of a French annexation of the country led 13 northern chiefs to ask King William IV for his protection
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In July 1844 Ngāpuhi chief Hōne Heke Pōkai organized the felling of the flagpole above Kororāreka (later Russell) in a protest about unfulfilled promises of British colonization.
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The (British) New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 set up New Zealand's parliamentary system, based on the Westminster model.
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The Education Act 1877 (passed into law on 29 November) established free, compulsory and secular education for all Pākehā New Zealand children.