Our countdown begins to the 100-year anniversary of the Anzac landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Neil Finn has re-recorded the 1940s Kiwi classic Blue Smoke — a song written and first played on a WWII troopship with lyrics about a soldier’s hopes to return home — with one of the musicians who played on the original.

81: Nellie Knight outlived six of her ten children. Of the seven sons she bore, four of them were casualties of war.

Nature hadn't been placed on the guest list for an Anzac service in the Auckland Islands on Sunday, but she turned up anyway.

80: Letters addressed to wives, mothers, fathers, sisters and relatives, they provided a censored glimpse of the conditions facing the troops.

Prime Minister John Key will join his Australian counterpart along with Prince of Wales and Prince Harry at next month's centenary commemorations of the Gallipoli landings.

In 1942, when young radio operator Johnny Jones was sent to Auckland Islands as a radio operator, he recalls a country on edge.

On March 26, the last of the southern coastwatchers, John Stuart Jones, was to have voyaged to the Auckland Islands with an expedition to restore his old home in Ranui Cove.

One million coloured coins will be released next month to mark the centenary of the Anzac landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is releasing a legal tender coloured Anzac circulating commemorative coin to honour the spirit of Anzac that was formed at Gallipoli 100 years ago. One million of the special 50-cent coins have been minted and colour stamped by the Royal Canadian Mint, using a special high-speed pad printing process which generates sharper, more detailed coin imagery than traditional inkjet printing.The Anzac coin is the first circulating coin in the world to utilise the revolutionary printing technology. This video footage was supplied by Royal Canadian Mint.

Australia's fallen Kangaroos are running scared of the Kiwis all the way back to Brisbane, but this time they have gone way too far.

Jack Tame writes: John Mulgan died on Anzac Day, 1945 - an intentional morphine overdose, three days before the end of the war. Today he lies in a quiet cemetery in Cairo.

We all know John Key is susceptible to brain fade when it comes to historic events, writes Brian Rudman. But to forget what happened at Gallipoli 99 years ago does suggest he should really start upping his ginseng and cod-liver oil intake.

More than 600 extra people are eligible to take part in Gallipoli 2015 celebrations, thanks to a reallocation of tickets.

43: In spring 1916, General Sir Tom Bridges won something unusual in a Red Cross Raffle in Paris - a lion.

Craft groups, the RSA and crochet enthusiasts are getting behind an ambitious goal of making 5000 poppies by Anzac Day next year.

Survivor of the Anzac Day helicopter crash Sergeant Stevin Creeggan has endured years of pain and humiliating treatment from the Air Force, but his family are speaking out.

Air force commanders allowed a dangerous and deadly culture of rule-breaking that ultimately resulted in the deaths of three young airmen, a court has found.

The return of a contract to New Zealand to make Poppy Day poppies is being celebrated by veterans.

Minister of Veterans' Affairs Michael Woodhouse has upset a family by mistakenly claiming a link to the Gallipoli campaign.

Young New Zealanders have been urged by Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae to visit the battlefields and cemeteries of Europe, not just Gallipoli.

Labour leader David Cunliffe’s incorrect claim that his grandfather won a Military Medal was the result of a family mix-up, his office says.

New Zealanders gathered in their thousands to celebrate Anzac Day at dawn services around the country on Friday, and now attention turns to preparations for next year's centenary of the World War I Gallipoli campaign.

I don't normally feel aggrieved when I'm queuing for immigration checks at airports.

It happens every year now on April 25: Maori Television morphs into our very own history channel, writes Greg Dixon