900 AD (+/-)  Maori arrived from Pacific.

1740's  Europeans started to bumble around the area.

1800's  Exploiters arrived (whalers, sealers, traders).

1830's  Settlers started arriving.

1840's  The 'Maori' Land Wars

There were actually four separate wars (though some tribes fought in more
than one):
NgaPuhi, Northland (1840s)
Taranaki,(1860s)
Kingites, Waikato (1860s)
Te Kooti etc (1860s)

John Hopkins offers the following 'gratuitous comments ;-)' (sic):
"The term "Maori Wars" has not been used for some considerable time, as it
suggests that Maori were responsible for the wars - another example of "the
winner" rewriting history to suit their own purposes.  Recognised
descriptions now are "the New Zealand Wars", or the "Land Wars" - the
latter is preferable in some ways because it reveals what the wars were
about.  In particular, the invasion of the Waikato by English led troops as
a pretext to force Maori to defend themselves and then confiscate their
land for being "in rebellion" against the English Crown.  A good reference
is the Waitangi Tribunal report on the Tainui claim."

1893?   Universal Suffrage.

The 1945-50 Baby Boom
There was a baby boom in 1945-50 after the survivors returned from the
Second World War.  The reasons should be obvious.  (I think that it has
been mentioned here that New Zealand lost a larger fraction of its
population in the Second World War than any other Allied country except
the USSR, nearly all of them young men).  There was a lesser peak 20 to
30 years later as the products of the first boom had their own children.

1985  Internet gets going...  :-)

May 1994  The soc.culture.new-zealand faq gets posted!