Political cartoon depicting Kalākaua auctioning off the Hawaiian Islands
King Kalākaua's world tour in 1881 made him the first monarch to circumnavigate the globe. His agenda was to negotiate contract labor for the Kingdom of Hawaii's sugar plantations, with hopes of saving the dwindling Native Hawaiian population by drawing immigration from Asia-Pacific nations. Rumors circulated that the King secretly intended to use the trip to sell the Hawaiian Islands to the highest bidder. He visited American legislators and had an audience with the Pope in Rome. He also met with European and Asian heads of state, and was influenced by their ornate ceremonies and displays of military power. In between negotiations, Kalākaua and his companions visited tourist sites and attended local Freemasonry lodge meetings. As a result of his visit with Thomas Edison on the return trip through New York, Iolani Palace later became the first building in Hawaii with electric lighting. Kalākaua's amiable personality generated goodwill around the world, and he succeeded in increasing Hawaii's labor force. The Japanese workers he attracted were commemorated a century later with a new statue of Kalākaua in Waikiki. (Full article...)
... that Queen Tamaeva V saved the Rimatara lorikeet(pictured) from extinction through a royal taboo that forbade her people from harming or exporting the birds?
... that Chocorua Island Chapel at Squam Lake, New Hampshire, part of the first summer youth camp in America, was built by the camp's boys with an erratic boulder, trees, and beach sand?
... that Juan Tepano was proclaimed "king" of Easter Island by officers of the Chilean Navy, but no one – including Tepano – took the ceremony seriously?
1520 – Citizens of Toledo, Castile, who were opposed to the rule of the foreign-born Charles V, rose up in revolt when the royal government attempted to unseat radical city councilors.
1947 – American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch(pictured) first described the post–World War II tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States as a "cold war".
Todi is a town and comune (municipality) of the province of Perugia in central Italy. Perched on a tall two-crested hill overlooking the east bank of the river Tiber, it had a population of more than 17,000 in 2007.
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