A Brief History

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A Brief History

Written by Rachel

Monday, 01 December 2008 17:53

Brief History of Palau

Here's the very short and sweet version of the Republic of Palau.

Exactly when the first people arrived on Palau is still a mystery, but some artifacts show civilization here as far back as 1,000 BC.

The first foreigner showed up in the 1700s,. An English boat that shipwrecked near Ulong. It took him 3 months to repair and Europeans just kept on showing up after that.

Spain was actually the first to talk about seeing the islands of Palau in the 1500's so they claimed it in 1686. Spain was the first country to exert rulership over Palau – what they called Caroline Islands. In 1885 they kicked the English out of Palau and got active in ruling.

Then Spain sold islands to Germany in 1899 and the German’s got busy exploiting Palau’s natural resources. The German’s named it Palau. Germany stayed in charge until their defeat in WWI. Then the islands were passed to the Japanese. Sounds like a game of musical chairs - every time the music stops, Palau gets ruled by someone else.

Then there was WWII, and a lot of battles were fought among the islands of Palau. Some of the bloodiest were fought down on Peleliu. When the Japanese were defeated, Palau, along with some of the other neighboring island groups became UN Trust Territories under US administration. The US was supposed to help Palau move toward becoming a self-sufficient nation. That took until 1994, when Palau became its own nation.