Events on this Day – 29 October

It remains the third deadliest shipwreck ever in New Zealand waters: 121 lives were lost when the steamer Wairarapa struck Miners Head, the north-west point of Great Barrier Island, 90 km north-east of Auckland.

The passing of the Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act enabled women to stand for election to the House of Representatives, 26 years after they won the right to vote.

Peter Jackson and Costa Botes' documentary about Colin McKenzie, a forgotten hero of early New Zealand movie-making, was later revealed as the biggest Kiwi film hoax of the century.