Hawaii

Hawaii entered American history as a conquest dressed as an invitation. The Hawaiian Kingdom, ruled by a sovereign monarchy for centuries, was overthrown in January 1893 by a group of American sugar planters and businessmen backed by U.S. Marines — a coup that President Grover Cleveland later called a flagrant violation of international law and refused to ratify. His successor William McKinley had no such qualms. Congress annexed Hawaii in 1898, the same year it acquired Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, and the islands became a U.S. territory over the protests of Native Hawaiians who circulated a petition bearing 21,000 signatures opposing annexation.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Oahu killed 2,403 Americans, wounded nearly 1,200 more, sank or damaged 19 naval vessels, and destroyed 328 aircraft. It brought the United States into World War II within 24 hours. The attack also triggered one of the most shameful domestic policy decisions of the war: Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced relocation of 120,000 Japanese Americans — most of them U.S. citizens — into internment camps across the interior West. Hawaii itself, despite its large Japanese American population, was not subjected to mass internment, partly because it would have been economically impossible.

Hawaii became the 50th state on August 21, 1959, the last state admitted to the Union. Its indigenous culture, its position as the most racially diverse state in the country, and its geographic isolation in the middle of the Pacific give it a character unlike any other state. Barack Obama, born in Honolulu in 1961, became the first president from Hawaii — and the first of African descent — in 2009.