Ancient World
Settlement of Tonga and Samoa: The Birth of Polynesia
The settlement of Tonga and Samoa created the homeland where Ancestral Polynesian language and culture developed before the later voyages into eastern Polynesia.
Region
Oceania
Middle Ages
Tu'i Tonga Empire: Tonga's Medieval Maritime Chiefdom
The Tu'i Tonga built a far-reaching network of tribute and marriage alliances; from c. 1470 political power passed to new lines, and the title ended in 1865.
Middle Ages
Polynesian Settlement of Hawaii: First Arrivals in the Islands
Polynesian settlers founded a society that grew into some of the most complex chiefdoms in the Pacific by the time of European contact in 1778.
Middle Ages
Polynesian Voyaging: How Navigators Settled East Polynesia
Within roughly three centuries, Polynesians settled almost every habitable island in a triangle of ocean larger than Europe and North America combined.
Middle Ages
Nan Madol: The Basalt City of Pohnpei's Saudeleur Dynasty
Nan Madol served as the political and religious centre of a unified Pohnpei until the Saudeleur dynasty fell, traditionally around 1628; it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Middle Ages
Settlement of Rapa Nui: Hotu Matu'a and the First Islanders
Polynesian voyagers founded a lasting society on one of the most remote inhabited islands on Earth, the people who later carved the moai.
Middle Ages
Moai of Rapa Nui: History of the Easter Island Statues
Nearly 1,000 statues were carved to honour ancestors; all had been toppled by the mid-1800s, and some have since been re-erected as a World Heritage Site.
Middle Ages
Maori Settlement of New Zealand: The Last Great Migration
East Polynesian settlers made New Zealand their home, founding the Maori people and transforming the islands' environment within a few generations.
Middle Ages
Moa Extinction: How New Zealand's Giant Birds Disappeared
All nine moa species and their predator, Haast's eagle, became extinct, one of the fastest human-caused megafauna extinctions known.
Early Modern
Duyfken Voyage (1606): First European Landing in Australia
The Duyfken charted about 300 km of the Cape York coast, making the first recorded European landfall in Australia, but the Dutch judged the land of no commercial value.
Early Modern
Dirk Hartog Plate (1616): Oldest European Relic in Australia
Hartog made the first recorded European landing on the west coast of Australia and left an inscribed plate, now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Early Modern
Batavia Shipwreck and Mutiny (1629): Massacre on the Abrolhos
The Batavia was lost and about 110 to 125 survivors were murdered by mutineers; Pelsaert's rescue ship captured the mutineers, and Cornelisz and six others were hanged on 2 October 1629.