Primary Sources from UH Mānoa Library's Hawaiʻi Congressional Papers Collection
1300 B.C. – 700 B.C.: Original settlement of “Micronesia” including Marianas, Marshall, and Caroline Islands.
A.D. 300: Original settlement of Hawaiian Islands.
1898: U.S. officially and illegally annexes Hawaiian Islands as an incorporated territory.
1914: Japan administers the League of Nations South Sea Mandate.
1944 - 1945: U.S. and Japan fight numerous battles in the South Sea Mandate Islands.
1945: Japan surrenders after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; U.S. takes control of Japan’s Mandate Islands in United Nations arrangement called the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.
1951: U.S. administration of the Trust Territory shifts from being the Navy’s responsibility to the Department of Interior.
1959: Hawaiʻi becomes a state of the United States.
July 1965: Congress of Micronesia founded.
August 1965: Hawaiʻi Senators Hiram Fong and Daniel Inouye propose the Pacific State.
1967: Pacific State Proposal morphs into the 1967 Study Commission on the Future Political Status of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.
1969: Future political status negotiations begin between the US and the Congress of Micronesia.
1975: Northern Mariana Islands become a Commonwealth of the United States.
1986: Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands conclude future political status negotiations with the United States. Both countries agree to a Compact of Free Association (COFA) with the United States.
1994: Republic of Palau concludes future political status negotiations with the United States by signing a Compact of Free Association; Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands officially ends.