For my week-by-week desk calender through 2012, I will rely on an unflashy but serviceable volume from American Express. As with last year's calender, there are factual tidbits on each page about various destinations where I can presumably enjoy a debt-financed vacation with my Amex card. One of the early pages tells me, for example, with reference to Kauai, Hawaii, that a native of Kauai was "the only royal-born person ever elected to the U.S. Congress." Prince Jonah Huhio Kalanianaole served as a delegate to Congress from the then-Territory of Hawaii from 1903 to 1922.
This year's Amex calender doesn't have the "30 years ago this week" feature that last year's did. I wonder why they axed it? I would imagine that 1982 was at least as interesting a year, week-to-week, that 1981 was.
Maybe they simply realized that I can always check out 30-years events at websites like this: CED Magic.
Separately, my month-by-month calender for the coming year, from Universe Publishing, provides me with classic illustrations from the career of Tintin, now the protagonist of a Spielberg movie. The movie has been in the works for a long time, apparently since soon after the death of Tintin's creator, Hergé, in 1983. At one time it was to be a Universal/Paramount partnership, but Universal pulled out, and the movie now in theatres comes to us from Paramout and Sony. Personally, I hope it proves to be a long and successful franchise. It seems to give Spielberg a good excuse to revert to his Indiana-Jones phase.
Finally, for the day-to-day or "box" calender on the top of my dresser, I am done with "non sequitur" and have propped up a box consisting of one witticism a day from Johnny Carson, in the glory days of the Tonight Show.
Out with the old, in with the new!
Showing posts with label Hawaii. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hawaii. Show all posts
05 January 2012
14 June 2009
The annexation of Hawaii
The United States annexed the Republic of Hawaii in 1898, and soon thereafter appropriately re-named it the Territory of Hawaii.
Why? Well ... my vague impression until recently was that like much that has happened since, this was about energy and oil. Specifically, Hawaii had become the crucial mid-Pacific stop for whaling ships.
But I've had to revise that. The whaling voyages made Hawaii of strategic interest, but they don't really explain the need for annexation. After all, the ships had been stopping there for decades. If Hawaii had remained an independent republic, would there have been a threat to whaling?
Hawaii hadn't been a republic for very long. It had been a monarchy until 1893. It was only a republic, then, for a brief period prior to its annexation -- a path similar to that of the Lone Star Republic/State.
And the dramatic events all had more to do with sugar than with oil. Energy yes, oil no.
Why? Well ... my vague impression until recently was that like much that has happened since, this was about energy and oil. Specifically, Hawaii had become the crucial mid-Pacific stop for whaling ships.
But I've had to revise that. The whaling voyages made Hawaii of strategic interest, but they don't really explain the need for annexation. After all, the ships had been stopping there for decades. If Hawaii had remained an independent republic, would there have been a threat to whaling?
Hawaii hadn't been a republic for very long. It had been a monarchy until 1893. It was only a republic, then, for a brief period prior to its annexation -- a path similar to that of the Lone Star Republic/State.
And the dramatic events all had more to do with sugar than with oil. Energy yes, oil no.
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