|Eastbourne beach looking across at Wellington - Image: Phil Benge|
A century ago New Zealand entered into its bloodiest conflict ever, eventually sending a tenth of its total population overseas to fight for the Empire. The commemorations of this centenary have begun throughout the world but we thought we'd share a few distinctly New Zealand examples:
Tweets from 100 years ago - History from the perspective of kiwis at the time. If they had Twitter that is. Imagine how much more personal the conflict could have been with this sort of close contact between home and the battlefield.
WW100 - The centenary project that is a shared identity for New Zealand WW1 commemorations. Details for commemorative events, news and shared history are all on here. What's happening near you?
NZhistory - New Zealand's history in the conflict including stories from the battlefield, military operations and the invasion of Samoa.
It's hard to imagine what life was like back then before technology made the world the much smaller place it is today but some things are not so different. New Zealand still operated in a globalised world. Our links across the seas were if anything stronger than they are now with an even higher proportion of our citizens born elsewhere. Looking back gives us insight into who we are as a country and who we might want to become in the future. We can only hope that the right lessons have been learned.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana