Lanai (Hawaiian: Lānaʻi) is the sixth-largest of the Hawaiian Islands and the smallest publicly accessible inhabited island in the chain. It is colloquially known as the Pineapple Island because of its past as an island-wide pineappleplantation. The island’s only settlement of note is the small town of Lanai City. The island is 98% owned by Larry Ellison, cofounder and chairman of Oracle Corporation; the remaining 2% is owned by the state of Hawaii or individual homeowners. read more…
The Hana Highway (colloquially referred to as The Road to Hana) is a 64.4-mile-long (103.6 km) stretch of Hawaii Routes 36 and 360 which connects Kahului to the town of Hana in east Maui. To the east of Kalepa Bridge, the highway continues to Kipahulu as Hawaii Route 31 (the Piilani Highway). Although Hana is only about 52 miles (84 km) from Kahului, an uninterrupted car-trip takes about 2.5 hours to drive, since the highway is very winding, narrow, and passes over 59 bridges, of which 46 are only one lane wide. There are approximately 620 curves along Route 360 from just east of Kahului to Hana, almost all of it through lush, tropical rainforest. Many of the concrete and steel bridges date back to 1910 and all but one are still in use. That one bridge, badly damaged by erosion, has been replaced by a portable steel ACROW or Bailey bridge erected by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. read more…
The USS Arizona Memorial, at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, marks the resting place of 1,102 of the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and commemorates the events of that day. The attack on Pearl Harbor led to the United States’ involvement in World War II. read more…
Pearl Harbor is an American lagoonharbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands are now a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet. The U.S. government first obtained exclusive use of the inlet and the right to maintain a repair and coaling station for ships here in 1887. The surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941, led the United States to declare war on the Empire of Japan, making the attack on Pearl Harbor the immediate cause of the United States’ entry into World War II. read more…
