Dame Edith Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand mystery writer and theatre director. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1966.
Sir Donald Charles McKinnon is a New Zealand politician who served as the 12th deputy prime minister of New Zealand and the minister of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand. He was the secretary-general of the Commonwealth of Nations from 2000 until 2008.
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island and the second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has a population of 396,200 and is located in the Canterbury Region, near the centre of the east coast of the South Island, east of the Canterbury Plains. It is located near the southern end of Pegasus Bay, and is bounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean and to the south by the ancient volcanic complex of the Banks Peninsula. The Avon River (Ōtākoro) winds through the centre of the city, with a large urban park along its banks. With the exception of the Port Hills, it is a relatively flat city, on an average around 20 m (66 ft) above sea level. Christchurch has a reputation for being an English city, with its architectural identity and nickname the 'Garden City' due to similarities with garden cities in England. Christchurch has a temperate oceanic climate with regular moderate rainfall.
Metiria Leanne Agnes Stanton Turei is a New Zealand academic and former politician. She was a Member of Parliament from 2002 to 2017 and the female co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand from 2009 to 2017. Turei resigned from the co-leader position on 9 August 2017 amid a political controversy arising from her admission to lying to the Ministry of Social Development to receive higher payments when she was on the Domestic Purposes Benefit and later, to being enrolled to vote in an electorate where she was not eligible when she was 23.
Kyle Chapman is a New Zealand far-right political activist and the former national director of the New Zealand National Front (NZNF), a white nationalist political party with a deep hate for Māori and Pasifika New Zealanders that worked to eliminate Māori and 'black people'. He has stood unsuccessfully three times for the Christchurch mayoralty: first for the NZNF (2004); then for the National Democrats Party (2007); and then for the Resistance Party (2013).
The New Zealand Listener is a weekly New Zealand magazine that covers the political, cultural and literary life of New Zealand by featuring a variety of topics, including current events, politics, social issues, health, technology, arts, food, culture and entertainment. The Bauer Media Group closed The Listener in April 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand. In June 2020, Mercury Capital acquired the magazine as part of its purchase of Bauer Media's former Australia and New Zealand assets, which were rebranded as Are Media.
Rhys Montague Darby is a New Zealand actor and comedian, known for his energetic physical comedy routines, telling stories accompanied with mime, and sound effects of things such as machinery and animals. He was nominated for the Billy T Award in 2001 and 2002 and won the 2012 Fred (Dagg) Award for best NZ show at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival.
Islam is the third-largest religion in New Zealand (1.3%) after Christianity (37.3%) and Hinduism (2.7%). Small numbers of Muslim immigrants from South Asia and eastern Europe settled in New Zealand from the early 1900s until the 1960s. Large-scale Muslim immigration began in the 1970s with the arrival of Indian Fijians, followed in the 1990s by refugees from various war-torn countries.
The Christchurch City Council is the local government authority for Christchurch in New Zealand. It is a territorial authority elected to represent the 396,200 people of Christchurch. Since October 2022, the Mayor of Christchurch is Phil Mauger, who succeeded after the retirement of Lianne Dalziel. The council currently consists of 16 councillors elected from sixteen wards, and is presided over by the mayor, who is elected at large. The number of elected members and ward boundaries changed prior to the 2016 election.
Most New Zealand place names have a Māori or a British origin. Both groups used names to commemorate notable people, events, places from their homeland, and their ships, or to describe the surrounding area. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the whole of New Zealand before the arrival of Europeans, but post-colonisation the name Aotearoa has been used to refer to the whole country. Dutch cartographers named the islands Nova Zeelandia, the Latin translation of the Dutch Nieuw Zeeland. By the time of British exploration, the country's name was anglicised to New Zealand.
Kate McKinnon Berthold is an American actress and comedian. She was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2012 to 2022, where she became known for her character work and celebrity impressions. For her work on the series, she was nominated for ten Primetime Emmy Awards, including one for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics and nine for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, winning in 2016 and 2017.
Christianity is the largest religion in Rwanda, with Protestantism and Catholicism being its main denominations. Around 3% of the population claims no religious affiliation, while another 3% practices other religions including traditional faiths. Approximately 2% of the populace is Muslim.
Dame Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern is a former New Zealand politician who served as the 40th prime minister of New Zealand and leader of the Labour Party from 2017 to 2023. She was a Labour member of Parliament (MP) as a list MP from 2008 to 2017, and for Mount Albert from 2017 to 2023.
Sir Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill is a New Zealand actor and vintner. Neill's career has included leading roles in both dramas and blockbusters. Considered an "international leading man", he is regarded as one of the most versatile actors of his generation.
Lore Vailer Segal was an Austrian-American novelist, translator, teacher, short story writer, and author of children's books. She was the author of five novels, and was known for her autobiographical fiction, drawing on her life as an Austrian Jewish refugee who fled to the United Kingdom as a child, growing up in England before settling in the United States. Her fourth novel, Shakespeare's Kitchen, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2008.
Taieri is a parliamentary electorate in the Otago region of New Zealand, initially from 1866 to 1911, and was later recreated during the 2019/20 electoral redistribution ahead of the 2020 election.
The 2010 Christchurch mayoral election is part of the 2010 New Zealand local elections. On 9 October 2010, elections were held for the Mayor of Christchurch plus other local government roles. Incumbent Bob Parker was re-elected.
Elizabeth Edgar was a New Zealand botanist, best known for her work in authoring and editing three of the five volumes of the series Flora of New Zealand, which describes and classifies the species of flora of the country. She was most noted for her taxonomic work on the biodiversity of New Zealand and was recognised as the foremost authority on nomenclature and description of the country's plants.
Two consecutive mass shootings took place in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. They were committed by a single perpetrator during Friday prayer, first at the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton, overlooking Hagley Park, at 1:40 p.m., and second, after driving at speed across town, at the Linwood Islamic Centre at 1:52 p.m. Altogether, 51 people were killed and 89 others were injured, including 40 by gunfire.
Avenal Beryl Elizabeth McKinnon was a New Zealand art historian and writer. She was the founding director of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkena Whakaata.
