WThe islands which now form the Republic of Kiribati have been inhabited for at least seven hundred years, and possibly much longer. The initial Austronesian peoples’ population, which remains the overwhelming majority today, was visited by Polynesian and Melanesian invaders before the first European sailors visited the islands in the 17th century. For much of the subsequent period, the main island chain, the Gilbert Islands, was ruled as part of the British Empire. The country gained its independence in 1979 and has since been known as Kiribati.
WJohn T. Arundel was an English entrepreneur who was instrumental in the development of the mining of phosphate rock on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Banaba. Williams & Macdonald (1985) described J.T. Arundel as "a remarkable example of that mid-Victorian phenomenon, the upright, pious and adventurous Christian English businessman."
WThe British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT) was the name of a colonial entity, created in 1877, for the administration, under a single representative of the British Crown, styled High Commissioner for the Western Pacific, of a series of Pacific islands in and around Oceania. Except for Fiji and the Solomon Islands, most of these colonial possessions were relatively minor.
WJohn Wilberforce "Jack" Buckland (1864–1897), also known as "Tin Jack", was a trader who lived in the South Pacific in the late 19th century. He travelled with Robert Louis Stevenson and his stories of life as an island trader became the inspiration for the character of Tommy Hadden in The Wrecker (1892).
WBurns Philp was once a major Australian shipping line and merchant that operated in the South Pacific. When the well-populated islands around New Guinea were targeted for blackbirding in the 1880s, a new rush for labour from these islands began. James Burns and Robert Philp purchased several well-known blackbirding ships to quickly exploit the human resource in this region, and Burns Philp entered the slave trade. The company ended its involvement in blackbirding in 1886. In later years the company was a major player in the food manufacturing business. Since its delisting from the Australian Stock Exchange in December 2006 and the subsequent sale of its assets, the company has mainly become a cashed up shell company. It is wholly owned by Graeme Hart's Rank Group.
WLouis Isidore Duperrey was a French naval officer and explorer.
WThe Gilbert and Ellice Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, were a British protectorate from 1892 and colony, from 12 January 1916 until 1 January 1976, part of the British Empire. The history of the colony was mainly characterized by phosphate mining in Ocean Island. In October 1975, these islands were de jure divided into two separated colonies which became independent nations shortly thereafter, Tuvalu (1978) and Kiribati (1979).
WThe Japanese occupation of the Gilbert Islands was the period in the history of Kiribati between 1941 and 1945 when Imperial Japanese forces occupied Gilbert Islands during World War II, on the Pacific War theatre.
WKanton Island, previously known as "Mary Island", "Mary Balcout's Island" or "Swallow Island", is the largest, northernmost, and as of 2020, the sole inhabited island of the Phoenix Islands, in the Republic of Kiribati. It is an atoll located in the South Pacific Ocean roughly halfway between Hawaii and Fiji at 2°50′S 171°40′W. The island is a narrow ribbon of land around a lagoon; an area of 40 square kilometers. Kanton's closest neighbor is the uninhabited island of Enderbury, 63 km to the south. The capital of Kiribati, South Tarawa, lies 1,765 km to the west. As of 2005, the population was 41, down from 61 in 2000. In May 2010 the population was reportedly 24, with 14 adults and 10 children. The island's sole village is called Tebaronga.
WDonald Gilbert Kennedy was a teacher, then an administrator in the British colonial service in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony and the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. For his services as a Coastwatcher during the Pacific War, he was awarded the DSO, and the Navy Cross (U.S.). He published journal articles and books on the material culture of Vaitupu atoll, land tenure and the language of the Ellice Islands.
WThe Gilbert Islands are a chain of sixteen atolls and coral islands in the Pacific Ocean about halfway between Papua New Guinea and Hawaii. They were the British colony of the Gilbert Islands from 1976 to 1979, succeeding to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony (1916–1975). They form the main part of Kiribati.
WThe Raid on Makin Island was an attack by the United States Marine Corps Raiders on Japanese military forces on Makin Island in the Pacific Ocean. The aim was to destroy Imperial Japanese installations, take prisoners, gain intelligence on the Gilbert Islands area, and divert Japanese attention and reinforcements from the Allied landings on Guadalcanal and Tulagi.
WThe Battle of Makin was an engagement of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought from 20 to 24 November 1943, on Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.
WJohn T. Arundel was an English entrepreneur who was instrumental in the development of the mining of phosphate rock on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Banaba. Williams & Macdonald (1985) described J.T. Arundel as "a remarkable example of that mid-Victorian phenomenon, the upright, pious and adventurous Christian English businessman."
WThe Phoenix Islands or Rawaki are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs, lying in the central Pacific Ocean east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands. They are a part of the Republic of Kiribati. During the late 1930s, they became the site of the last attempted colonial expansion of the British Empire through the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme. The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, established in 2008, is one of the world's largest protected areas, and home to some 120 species of coral and more than 500 species of fish.
WThe Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme was begun in 1938 in the western Pacific ocean and was the last attempt at human colonisation within the British Empire.
WPresident Taylor was a cargo-liner, ex President Polk, ex Granite State, requisitioned for war service in December 1941 and allocated by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) to the U.S. Army and operating as a troopship in the Pacific Ocean in World War II when grounded and eventually lost on 14 February 1942.
WRawaki is one of the Phoenix Islands in the Republic of Kiribati, also known by its previous name of Phoenix Island. It is a small, uninhabited atoll, approximately 1.2 by 0.8 kilometres in size and 65 hectares in area, with a shallow, brackish lagoon that is not connected to the open sea. It is located at 3.721°S 170.712°W.