Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [22]
AD 300–600 The first wave of Polynesians, most likely from the Marquesas Islands, voyage by canoe to the Hawaiian Islands – a half-century before Vikings leave Scandinavia to plunder Europe.
1000–1300 Sailing from Tahiti, a second wave of Polynesian voyagers arrives in Hawaii. Their tools are made of stone, shells and bone, and they bring taro, sweet potato, sugarcane, coconut, chickens, pigs and dogs.
1778–79 Captain Cook visits Hawaii twice, the first foreigner to reach the islands. After being warmly welcomed, Cook loses his temper over a stolen boat and is killed by Hawaiians.
1810 Fourteen years after conquering the other islands, King Kamehameha the Great negotiates peacefully to take control of Kaua’i, uniting all the islands under one kingdom for the first time.
1819 King Kamehameha dies ‘in the faith of his fathers’; a few months later, his son, the new king Liholiho, breaks the kapu on eating with women, repudiating the Hawaiian religion, but with nothing to replace it.
1820 The first Christian missionaries arrive in Hawaii; King Liholiho eventually allows leader Hiram Bingham to establish his missionary headquarters in Honolulu.
1826 Missionaries formulate a 12-letter alphabet (plus glottal stop) for the Hawaiian language and set up the first printing press. It’s said that Queen Ka’ahumanu learns to read in five days.
1828 Missionary Sam Ruggles introduces the first coffee tree as a garden ornamental; coffee doesn’t become a commercial crop until the 1840s, when hundreds of acres are planted on the Big Island.
1830 To control dangerous herds of feral cattle (originally a gift from Vancouver to Kamehameha), Hawaii imports Spanish-Mexican cowboys, dubbed ‘paniolo,’ who introduce Hawaiians to the guitar.
1846 At the height of the whaling era, a record 736 whaling ships stop at Hawaii ports. Ultimately, four of the Big Five sugar plantation companies get their start supplying whalers.
1848 King Kamehameha III institutes the Great Mahele, which (along with the 1850 Kuleana Act) for the first time allows commoners and foreigners to own land in Hawaii.
1852 The first sugar plantation contract laborers arrive from China; most Asian immigrants are single men who, upon completing their contract, often stay in Hawaii, starting families and small businesses.
1873 A Belgian Catholic priest, Father Damien Joseph de Veuster, arrives at Moloka’i’s leprosy colony to aid the sick. He stays for 16 years, dying of leprosy (now Hansen’s disease) himself in 1889.
1879 King Kalakaua lays the cornerstone for a new ’Iolani Palace, a lavish, four-story building with ornate throne room, running water and electric lights; it costs $350,00 and is completed in 1882.
1893 On January 17, the Hawaiian monarchy is overthrown by a group of American businessmen, supported by US Marines. Queen Lili’uokalani acquiesces peacefully but under protest. Not a shot is fired.
1895 Robert Wilcox leads a group of Hawaiian royalists in a failed counter-revolution to restore the monarchy. The deposed queen, charged with being a coconspirator, is placed under house arrest in ’Iolani Palace.
1898 On July 7, President McKinley signs the resolution annexing Hawaii as a US territory; this is formalized by the 1900 Organic Act establishing the territorial government.
1909 In Hawaii’s first major labor strike, 5000 Japanese plantation workers go on strike, protesting their low pay and harsh treatment compared to Portuguese workers. The strike ultimately fails, winning no concessions.
1912 Duke Kahanamoku wins gold and silver medals in freestyle swimming at the Stockholm Olympics; he goes on to become the ambassador of surfing around the world.
1916 Hawai’i National Park, the nation’s 12th national park, is established. It initially encompasses Haleakalā on Maui and Kilauea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island; these later become separate parks.
1921 The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act is passed. This sets aside 200,000 acres for homesteading by