In this TED-Ed video, Hawaiian scholar Sydney Iaukea tells the abbreviated story of how Hawaii came to be a territory of the United States.
On January 16th, 1895, two men arrived at Lili’uokalani’s door, arrested her, and imprisoned her. The Missionary Party had recently seized power and now confiscated her diaries, ransacked her house, and claimed her lands. Lili’uokalani was Hawaii’s queen and she ruled through one of the most turbulent periods of its history. Sydney Iaukea shares how the ruler fought the annexation of Hawaii.
The Volcano Goddess, Pele is continually erupting hot liquid rock into the channelized rivers leading to the Pacific Ocean. Most of the fountaining activity is still confined within the nearly 200-foot high spatter cone she has built around that eruptive vent. Her fiery fountains send 6-9 million cubic meters of lava downslope every day… a volume difficult to even wrap your mind around!
Scientists have found evidence of mega-tsunamis hitting the Hawaiian islands that were more than 1000 feet high. The tsunamis are caused by landslides from collapsing volcanos but don’t occur very often (every 100,000 years).
There are at least 15 giant landslides that have slid off the Hawaiian Islands in the past 4 million years, with the most recent happening only 100,000 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. One block of rock that slid off Oahu is the size of Manhattan.
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