3 Apr 2024

Untold Pacific History | Season 2 | Podcast Trailer

From Untold Pacific History, 3:00 pm on 3 April 2024
The words Untold Pacific History are written in a font reminiscent of a typewriter. In the background is a murky historic photo.

Photo: RNZ

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Series ClassificationG (General Audiences) | Watch the series here

S2 | E1: The Forgotten Soldiers of Niue: Wednesday, April 10, 2024 (VIDEO) | Friday, April 12, 2024 (PODCAST)
This is the little known story of the Forgotten Soldiers of Niue: 150 men plucked from their island paradise and sent 17,000 kms away to the cold frontlines of France during World War I.

The Niuean soldiers never made it to the frontline, however. Many instead died en route with the introduction of diseases they hadn't been exposed to.

S2 | E2: I'Iga Pisa, Samoa's Unsung Hero: Wednesday, April 17, 2024 (VIDEO) | Friday, April 19, 2024 (PODCAST)
In 1915, Samoan resistance fighter I’iga Pisa was condemned to exile in Saipan by the German colonisers of Samoa.
In an extraordinary feat, he escaped from his 5-year exile sentence by secretly carving out an outrigger canoe and paddling from Saipan to Guam: a distance of more than 150 km over a period of several days in which he navigated using the stars.

He had taught himself German during the colonial period of German rule in Samoa, but upon landing in American-ruled Guam, he learned New Zealand had taken over as Samoa's new colonial rulers.

S2 | E3: Papa Tom Davis, From the Seas to the Stars: Wednesday, April 24, 2024 (VIDEO) | Friday, April 26, 2024 (PODCAST)
Papa Tom's quest for truth, history, and culture has taken him around the world and even out of space, but it was in Aotearoa and the Cook Islands that it all began...

The extraordinary Cook Islander, the first person from NZ and the Pacific to work for NASA, was one of the grandfathers of traditional vaka sailing in the Pacific, and who revolutionised economic reform in the Cook Islands. He is still little-known to generations of young Pacific people and the NZ public in general.

NZ On Air

NZ On Air Photo: NZ On Air