163 Fun Facts About Hawaii

What is the state bird of Hawaii?

The nene, or Hawaiian goose, evolved from wild geese that strayed to the islands long ago; walking on lava far more than it swims, it has lost much of the webbing between its toes.

Which steady northeasterly winds keep Hawaii's climate mild for most of the year?

Trade winds blow from the northeast on most days and shape the islands: rain falls on the windward north and east slopes, leaving the leeward coasts sunny and dry.

How many main islands make up the Hawaiian archipelago?

Eight main islands make up the chain, and the state flag honors them with eight stripes, one for each island.

What year did Hawaii become the 50th U.S. state?

Hawaii was admitted to the Union on August 21, 1959, becoming the 50th state, seven months after Alaska became the 49th.

What is the capital city of Hawaii?

Honolulu is both the state capital and the largest city in Hawaii, and roughly two-thirds of the state's residents live on its island.

Which Honolulu palace was the official residence of Hawaii's last two monarchs?

Iolani Palace, completed in 1882, was a royal home for little more than a decade; after the 1893 overthrow it served as Hawaii's capitol for almost 80 years before being restored as a museum.

Which monarch united the Hawaiian Islands into one kingdom?

King Kamehameha I conquered island after island from 1795, and the last holdout, Kauai, joined in 1810 without a battle when its ruler agreed to serve under him.

What type of outdoor advertising is banned throughout Hawaii to preserve natural beauty?

Billboards were driven out by The Outdoor Circle, a group seven Honolulu women founded in 1912 to plant trees and fight roadside advertising; the ban followed in 1927.

In Hawaii, which animal is the 'honu', a symbol of good luck often seen basking on beaches?

Sea turtle is the meaning of honu; green sea turtles crawl onto beaches such as Punaluu to warm themselves in the sun, which is why they are so easy to spot in Hawaii.

Which Hawaiian volcano, the youngest on Hawaii Island, has been the most active since the islands were settled?

Kilauea is one of the busiest volcanoes on Earth, with only short pauses in recorded history; lava has resurfaced almost 90 percent of it within the last 1,000 years.

Measured from its base on the ocean floor, which Hawaiian peak is often called the world's tallest mountain?

Mauna Kea stands 13,803 feet above sea level, but more than half of it is hidden under the Pacific; from base to peak it rises about 33,500 feet, well past Everest's 29,032.

What is the official state fish of Hawaii?

The humuhumunukunukuapuaa (reef triggerfish) was named state fish in 1985, lapsed in 1990 when the law expired, and was permanently reinstated in 2006. Its name means 'triggerfish with a snout like a pig.'

What does the Hawaiian phrase 'Mele Kalikimaka' mean?

Merry Christmas became Mele Kalikimaka because Hawaiian has no r or s sound and never ends a syllable on a consonant; Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recorded a song of that name in 1950.

Which loose, brightly printed Hawaiian dress has a name meaning 'cut off'?

Muumuu means 'cut off' in Hawaiian: the dress began as a shift without the high neck and long sleeves of the holoku gowns that missionaries introduced in the 1820s.

What is the Hawaiian state flower?

The yellow hibiscus, or mao hau hele, grows wild in Hawaii's dry lowland forests, where grazing pigs, deer and goats and the loss of habitat have left it a threatened plant.

What natural disaster destroyed much of a historic Hawaiian town in August 2023?

The wildfire moved so fast that some residents escaped only by fleeing into the ocean, where Coast Guard crews rescued 17 people.

Which British captain, on his third voyage, made the first documented European contact with Hawaii in January 1778?

James Cook returned the following year and was killed at Kealakekua Bay.

What name did the British explorer who reached Hawaii in 1778 give the archipelago?

The Sandwich Islands honored John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty; the sandwich is named after the same earl.

Which Hawaiian goddess is believed to live in the Halemaumau crater?

Pele, goddess of volcanoes and fire, is said to have fled her sister Namaka from Tahiti; her body was destroyed but her spirit lives on in the crater.

Hawaii dominated the international trade in which crop until the 1960s?

Pineapple canning boomed in the early 1900s, but the industry shrank as planting moved to lower-cost countries overseas, and Del Monte, one of the big growers, quit Hawaii in the 2000s.

Which Hawaiian island is known as 'The Forbidden Isle' because access is restricted?

Niihau was bought from the Hawaiian kingdom by Elizabeth Sinclair in 1864 for $10,000; her descendants, the Robinson family, still own it and admit almost no outsiders.

Which French Polynesian island group is thought to have sent Hawaii's first settlers?

The Marquesas Islands voyage was once dated to about 300 CE, but newer radiocarbon work suggests the canoes arrived far later, between the 11th and 13th centuries.

Roughly how far is Hawaii from the nearest continental coast?

About 2,400 miles of open ocean separate Hawaii from the nearest continental shore, which is why so few plants and animals ever arrived and so many island species exist nowhere else.

Geologists worldwide use which Hawaiian word for smooth, ropy lava?

Pahoehoe probably takes its name from the Hawaiian for paddling, after the swirls on its surface; its rough, jagged opposite is called aa, from a word meaning to burn.

Which Hawaiian tradition is honored with a statewide celebration every May 1?

Lei Day began in the 1920s with poet Don Blanding, who wanted a day for the flower lei; a newspaper columnist suggested May Day and coined the slogan 'May Day is Lei Day'.

What is the meaning of the Hawaiian word 'mahalo'?

Thank you is the modern everyday sense of mahalo; an 1865 Hawaiian dictionary defined the word only as wonder, admiration, praise and honor.

Which Hawaiian island is nicknamed 'The Valley Isle'?

Maui gets the name from the low, flat isthmus that joins its two volcanic mountain masses into a single island.

Along with Hawaii, which state was an internationally recognised sovereign nation before joining the US?

Texas was an independent republic from 1836 to 1845, recognised by the United States in 1837; Vermont and California also declared republics, but no foreign government recognised either.

What undersea volcano growing off the southeast coast of Hawaii Island may one day become a new island?

Loihi, officially renamed Kamaʻehuakanaloa in 2021, is the only Hawaiian volcano still in its undersea building stage, where the weight of the sea keeps its eruptions from turning explosive.

Which reef break on Oahu's North Shore is famed for hollow winter waves and pro surf contests?

Pipeline, or the Banzai Pipeline, breaks over a shallow reef off Ehukai Beach, which throws its waves into the tubes that made it the best-known contest break on the North Shore.

Which family of Hawaiian forest birds evolved from stray finches into dozens of species found nowhere else?

Honeycreepers, cut off on the islands, evolved bills of wildly different shapes, some long and curved for sipping nectar; most of the species have died out since people and their animals arrived.

Hawaii's state motto, first spoken by its king in 1843, says the life of the land is perpetuated in what?

Righteousness translates the Hawaiian word pono; the king spoke the line on July 31, 1843, the day his kingdom's sovereignty was restored after a five-month occupation by a British naval captain.

Who was the last reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii?

Queen Liliuokalani was the last sovereign monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom. She was overthrown in January 1893 by a group of American and European businessmen with the support of U.S. Marines.

What unique element appears on the Hawaiian state flag that reflects its historical ties to Britain?

The Union Jack recalls the kingdom's early friendship with Britain: its founding king raised a British flag presented by Captain George Vancouver in 1794, and several of his advisers were British.

What traditional Hawaiian feast features a whole roasted pig cooked in an underground oven?

A luau is a traditional Hawaiian feast that often features kalua pig, which is cooked in an underground oven called an imu. The pig is wrapped in banana and ti leaves and slow-roasted for hours.

Which Hawaiian staple is made by pounding cooked taro on a wooden board with a stone pestle into a paste?

Poi is sweet when fresh but sours day by day through natural fermentation, and the taro corm gives it a pale purple colour.

Which Hawaiian volcano, famed for its summit sunrises, has a name meaning 'House of the Sun'?

Haleakala, 'House of the Sun', is where legend says a demigod snared the sun to slow its crossing and lengthen the day; sunrise at the summit is now so popular that visitors must reserve a place.

What is the Hawaiian word for 'family' that has become widely used in popular culture?

Ohana means 'family' in Hawaiian, encompassing not just blood relatives but also adopted or chosen family. It was popularized in mainstream culture through the Disney film Lilo & Stitch.

Which Hawaiian island, a U.S. Navy bombing range until 1990, has been left uninhabited?

Kahoolawe was bombed until 1990, when years of pressure from activists, who began landing on the island in 1976 and took the Navy to court, finally ended it; a ten-year ordnance cleanup followed.

What kind of animal is Hawaii's only native land mammal?

A bat, the Hawaiian hoary bat or opeapea, is the only land mammal that reached the islands on its own wings; every other one, from rats to pigs, arrived with people.

Which North Shore spot hosts a big-wave contest held only when wave faces reach about 40 feet?

Waimea Bay has seen the invitational run only a handful of times since the 1980s, because the surf so rarely reaches the required size.

Because so much of its native wildlife is threatened, Hawaii is often given what unhappy nickname?

Hawaii is often referred to as the 'Endangered Species Capital of the World' due to its extremely high number of threatened and endangered plant and animal species, many found nowhere else on Earth.

Which Waikiki hotel, opened in 1927, is known as 'The Pink Palace of the Pacific'?

The Royal Hawaiian was taken over by the U.S. Navy in World War II as a rest centre, mostly for submarine crews, and coils of barbed wire closed off its beach.

The summit of Hawaii's tallest mountain sits above most clouds, making it a world-class site for what?

Telescopes crowd the summit because it sits above the inversion layer that traps clouds below, leaving air that is dry, dark and steady; observatories have been built there since the 1960s.

In old Hawaii, the longest surfboards, called olo, were ridden by which class of people?

Chiefs rode the great olo boards and kept the best beaches for themselves; commoners surfed elsewhere on shorter boards, though skill in the waves could still win them prestige.

Which Hawaiian island did James Dole buy in 1922 and turn into one vast plantation?

Lanai stayed a company plantation island until its fields closed in 1992; in 2012 Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison bought 98 percent of it.

What type of rock formations are created when hot lava flows into the ocean and cools rapidly?

When lava hits seawater it shatters into basalt fragments, and a large flow can build a black sand beach almost overnight; Punaluu on Hawaii Island is the best-known example.

Which U.S. president was born in Hawaii?

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961 and, after four years in Indonesia, returned at age ten to live with his grandparents and attend Punahou School.

Which Hawaiian island's north coast has sea cliffs of about 3,000 feet, among the world's tallest?

Molokai owes the cliffs to a collapse: the island's northern flank slid into the sea more than a million years ago, scattering rubble across forty miles of seabed.

How did Polynesian voyagers navigate the open Pacific to reach Hawaii?

Reading stars, swells and wind patterns kept canoes on course; near land, navigators followed terns that fly out to fish at dawn and return to their island at dusk.

Which president signed the Hawaii Admission Act in March 1959?

Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii Admission Act on March 18, 1959; Hawaii's voters then approved statehood in a June plebiscite before formal admission that summer.

What was Hawaii's political status just before statehood in 1959?

A U.S. territory has only a non-voting delegate in Congress, and Hawaii's governors were appointed by the president, which is why islanders pushed for a state of their own.

What does the Hawaiian word 'wahine' mean?

Woman is wahine and man is kane in Hawaiian; English borrowed wahine too, and dictionaries now list a slang sense for it: a woman who surfs.

Hawaii is the only U.S. state that has never recorded what?

A subzero Fahrenheit reading has never been logged in Hawaii, even though winter blizzards bring snow and ice to its tallest peaks; its coldest night on record stayed above 10 degrees.

Which Hawaiian mountain is among the wettest spots on Earth?

Mount Waialeale on Kauai catches so much rain because its steep cliffs force moist ocean air sharply upward, where it cools and drops its water on the summit.

Which Hawaiian singer is famed for a ukulele medley of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'?

Israel Kamakawiwoole died in 1997 at just 38, and Hawaii gave him a rare honor: his body lay in state at the Capitol before his ashes were scattered at sea.

What are the men's teams of Hawaii's only NCAA Division I athletics program called?

The Rainbow Warriors owe the name to a rainbow that appeared over the field during the University of Hawaii's 1923 upset of Oregon State; reporters began calling the teams the Rainbows.

Which World War II unit of Japanese American soldiers, many from Hawaii, became the most decorated for its size?

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team fought under the motto 'Go for Broke'; many of its mainland soldiers served while their own families were held in U.S. internment camps.

Which president signed the Newlands Resolution annexing Hawaii on July 7, 1898?

William McKinley signed it five years after Grover Cleveland withdrew an earlier annexation treaty and called the landing of U.S. troops during the queen's overthrow 'an act of war'.

What nickname was given to the 1887 charter forced on the king by threat of force?

The Bayonet Constitution earned its name because an armed militia forced the king to sign or be deposed; it stripped him of most powers, took the vote from Asians and tied other voting rights to wealth.

Which Hawaiian city was the kingdom's capital before it moved to Honolulu in 1845?

Lahaina was the royal capital from 1820 and one of the main Pacific ports for whaling ships; the court left in 1845 as commerce shifted to Honolulu.

What does the name Honolulu mean in Hawaiian?

Honolulu means sheltered harbor, and the harbor made the city: after a British merchant captain brought his ship in during the 1790s, trading vessels followed and a town grew up around it.

Honolulu holds which distinction among major U.S. cities and state capitals?

Honolulu is the westernmost and southernmost major U.S. city and state capital, farther south than Miami and farther west than Anchorage.

Which Honolulu Harbor landmark, opened in 1926, stood as Hawaii's tallest structure for four decades?

Aloha Tower, a 184-foot lighthouse and clock tower on Pier 9, was the islands' tallest structure for four decades; after the Pearl Harbor attack it was painted in camouflage and put under guard.

Which 1875 treaty let Hawaiian sugar enter the United States duty-free?

The Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 admitted Hawaiian sugar duty-free; its 1887 renewal gave the United States exclusive rights to Pearl Harbor as a coaling and repair station.

Which Pacific Fleet warships escaped the Pearl Harbor attack because all three were away?

Carriers were out of reach that morning: Enterprise and Lexington were at sea on runs delivering aircraft to outlying islands and Saratoga was entering San Diego, so all three escaped the raid that wrecked the battleships.

Of the eight U.S. battleships at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, how many were sunk?

Four battleships were sunk: Arizona, Oklahoma, West Virginia and California; all eight were damaged, and only Arizona, plus the target ship Utah, were never refloated.

Which Japanese admiral planned the Pearl Harbor attack as a pre-emptive strike?

Isoroku Yamamoto had studied at Harvard and believed a long war with the United States would end in disaster for Japan, so as commander of the Combined Fleet he planned a surprise blow meant to cripple the Pacific Fleet at the start.

Pearl Harbor put Hawaii under which form of rule until 1944?

Martial law replaced the civilian government with a military governor, whose regime took over the courts and set rules on blackouts, curfews and censorship for everyone in the islands.

Oil still seeping from the sunken USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor is poetically called what?

'The tears of the Arizona', or black tears, still rise from the wreck beneath the memorial; survivors of its crew have chosen to have their ashes placed inside the hull by divers, beside their shipmates.

Which entertainer's 1961 benefit concert at Pearl Harbor raised money to build the USS Arizona Memorial?

Elvis Presley played the benefit on March 25, 1961, a year before the memorial was dedicated; it turned out to be his last public performance for seven years.

Which 1795 battle on Oahu ended with the island's defenders driven over the cliffs of the Pali?

The Battle of Nuuanu won Oahu for the invading army from Hawaii Island, and hundreds of defenders died in the fall from the Pali; only Kauai and Niihau then stood outside the new kingdom.

Which king surrendered Kauai and Niihau in 1810, completing the islands' unification?

Kaumualii, the ruling chief of Kauai, agreed in 1810 to become Kamehameha's vassal rather than fight, bringing Kauai and Niihau into the kingdom peacefully.

Which monarch's statue did Hawaii place in the Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection?

Hawaii's two Statuary Hall statues, both installed in 1969, depict Kamehameha I and Father Damien; the bronze Kamehameha, about 15,000 pounds, is among the collection's heaviest.

Which royal widow lost the 1874 legislative election for Hawaii's vacant throne to Lunalilo's successor?

Queen Emma, widow of Kamehameha IV, lost the legislature's vote 39 to 6; her supporters stormed the courthouse, and American and British sailors were landed to put the riot down.

Which Hawaiian song was composed by Queen Liliuokalani?

Liliuokalani composed 'Aloha Oe' in 1878, years before she became queen; during her 1895 imprisonment she wrote songs such as 'The Queen's Prayer' and translated the Kumulipo chant.

What was the title of Liliuokalani's 1898 autobiography?

'Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen', published in Boston in 1898, was Liliuokalani's account of the overthrow, written while she lobbied Washington against annexation.

In 1819 Hawaii's new king ended the kapu taboos by doing what?

Eating with women, the young King Liholiho broke the kapu that had kept men and women at separate meals on pain of death; the old religion fell with it, months before the first missionaries arrived.

What was the name of the group that led the 1893 coup against the Hawaiian monarchy?

The Committee of Safety, 13 businessmen and lawyers, declared a provisional government on January 17, 1893, after the queen tried to issue a new constitution restoring royal power.

Which 1993 act of Congress acknowledged the U.S. role in overthrowing the Hawaiian kingdom?

The Apology Resolution, signed by Bill Clinton a century after the overthrow, said sorry to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the American people; in 2009 the Supreme Court ruled it gave them no new claim to land.

What is the glottal-stop mark in written Hawaiian called?

The okina became a letter of the Hawaiian alphabet in its own right because, without a sign for the glottal stop, words with different meanings were spelled exactly alike.

Which author toured Hawaii in 1866 as a newspaper correspondent?

Mark Twain went as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union, and the trip changed his career: back in San Francisco he turned what he had seen in the islands into his first public lectures.

What do Hawaii locals call the English-based creole that grew up on the islands' sugar plantations?

Pidgin began because plantation workers from China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and elsewhere needed a common tongue; their children turned it into a full language, which linguists call Hawaii Creole.

Which style of hula is the ancient form, accompanied by chant and traditional instruments?

Kahiko is danced to chant, gourds and drums; missionaries who arrived in 1820 disapproved of the dance, and the style that grew up later to guitar and ukulele is auana, a word for wandering or drifting.

Which nickname did the last Hawaiian king earn for his love of singing and ukulele?

The 'Merrie Monarch' did more than entertain: hula had been banned in public in the kingdom, and he had it danced openly at his 1883 coronation and again at his birthday jubilee.

In which city is Hawaii's most prestigious annual hula competition held?

Hilo first staged the week-long festival in 1964; county officials launched it to bring visitors to an island whose economy was struggling, and it still opens on Easter Sunday.

Immigrants from which country brought the small guitars that became the ukulele?

Portugal's island of Madeira sent the three cabinet makers credited with the first ukuleles; two weeks after their ship docked in 1879, a local paper reported the newcomers delighting people with nightly street concerts.

What does the word 'ukulele' roughly translate to in Hawaiian?

Ukulele is usually translated as 'jumping flea', from uku (flea) and lele (jumping), possibly for the quick movement of a player's fingers on the strings.

Surfing pioneer Duke Kahanamoku won Olympic gold in which sport?

Swimming made him famous first: in 1911 he beat the 100-yard freestyle world record by more than four seconds in Honolulu Harbor, a time officials refused to believe, and he won Olympic gold in 1912 and 1920.

Duke Kahanamoku's 1914 surfing exhibition at Freshwater Beach helped launch surfing where?

Duke Kahanamoku's December 1914 exhibition at Freshwater Beach, Sydney, helped launch surfing in Australia; the board he shaped from local sugar pine is preserved by the Freshwater Surf Life Saving Club.

Which elected office did Duke Kahanamoku hold in Honolulu for decades?

Sheriff of Honolulu was his job for decades, which is why a 1946 Supreme Court case brought by a jailed shipyard worker is titled Duncan v. Kahanamoku.

Hurricane Iniki struck Kauai in 1992 during the filming of which movie?

Jurassic Park's cast and crew rode out the hurricane in their hotel on the last scheduled day of the Kauai shoot, and Steven Spielberg's footage of the storm made it into the film.

Mauna Loa holds which title among Earth's volcanoes?

Largest active volcano on Earth, Mauna Loa covers half of Hawaii Island and is so heavy that it has pressed the seafloor beneath it down by about five miles.

Under what name were today's Hawaii Volcanoes and Haleakala national parks created as one park in 1916?

Hawaii National Park was created on August 1, 1916, weeks before the National Park Service itself, and was divided in 1961 into Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Haleakala National Park.

In what year was the Volcanoes park on the Big Island named a World Heritage Site?

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, seven years after it became an International Biosphere Reserve in 1980.

Which rare Haleakala plant lives for decades, flowers once and then dies?

Silversword plants send up a single tall flowering stalk before they die; visitors once pulled them up as souvenirs, and the park now fences out the animals that graze on them.

What does the name Waikiki mean in Hawaiian?

Waikiki means 'spouting fresh water', most likely for the springs and streams that once fed the marshes and taro ponds behind the beach.

Which waterway was dug in the 1920s to drain Waikiki's mosquito-breeding wetlands?

The Ala Wai Canal, dug between 1921 and 1928 by Walter Dillingham's Hawaiian Dredging Company, drained the wetlands and rice paddies behind Waikiki and created the land for the resort district.

By tradition, cowboys from which country brought the guitars behind Hawaii's slack-key style in the 1830s?

Mexico supplied the vaqueros hired to teach Hawaiians cattle work, and the story goes that their guitars stayed behind; islanders slackened the strings into open tunings, which is what the Hawaiian name ki hoalu describes.

Hawaii's loco moco tops white rice with a hamburger patty, brown gravy and what?

Eggs, usually fried sunny-side up, crown the dish, which is said to have been created at a restaurant on Hawaii Island in 1949 for teenagers who wanted something cheap and quick that was not a sandwich.

Which sugar-coated fried doughnut did plantation workers from Madeira and the Azores bring to Hawaii?

Malasadas were a way to use up lard and sugar before the fast of Lent, which is why Hawaii still calls Shrove Tuesday 'Malasada Day'.

Which canned meat sits on a block of rice, wrapped in seaweed, in Hawaii's popular musubi snack?

Spam reached Hawaii with American forces in World War II and stayed on local tables after the war; musubi pairs a grilled slice with rice and nori in the style of a Japanese rice ball.

Which cold-water fish, absent from Hawaiian seas, is the salted base of the Hawaiian side dish lomi-lomi?

Salmon reached Hawaii salted, by ship, in the early 1800s; cooks 'lomi', or massage, it with tomato and onion, neither of which grew in the islands before outsiders arrived.

Who played Steve McGarrett in the original Hawaii Five-O?

Jack Lord played McGarrett for all 12 seasons, from 1968 to 1980, then stayed on in Honolulu for the rest of his life; his estate was left to Hawaiian charities.

In which country was the Hawaiian pizza invented?

Sam Panopoulos, a Greek immigrant, invented the Hawaiian pizza in 1962 at his Satellite Restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, Canada, and named it after the brand of canned fruit he put on it.

Father Damien, the priest who cared for Hawaii's exiled leprosy patients, was born in which country?

Belgium was home to Jozef De Veuster, who reached Hawaii in 1864 only because his brother, also a priest, was too ill to go; he caught leprosy himself, and forced isolation at the settlement lasted until 1969.

In old Hawaii, what was a puuhonua, like the one preserved as a national historical park at Honaunau?

A place of refuge could save a life: breaking a sacred kapu law often meant death, but a fugitive who reached the puuhonua's walls could not be harmed and was forgiven.

Which animal is Hawaii's official state mammal?

The Hawaiian monk seal lives nowhere else and is the last surviving species of its genus; its Caribbean cousin was declared extinct in 2008, the same year Hawaii made its own seal the state mammal.

Hunting and introduced predators cut Hawaii's state bird, a native goose, to about how many birds by 1952?

About 30 of the geese were left, down from an estimated 25,000 when Europeans first arrived in 1778; birds bred in captivity, many of them at a wildfowl reserve in England, were released to rebuild the flocks.

Which is the oldest of Hawaii Island's five volcanoes?

Kohala, at the island's northern tip, is the oldest of Hawaii Island's five volcanoes, about one million years old and last active roughly 120,000 years ago.

Which Big Island valley is nicknamed the 'Valley of the Kings'?

Waipio Valley was the seat of Hawaii Island's early ruling chiefs: Liloa kept his royal compound there, and it stayed the island's capital until the time of his son Umi.

Which Kauai river carved the gorge nicknamed the 'Grand Canyon of the Pacific'?

The Waimea River takes its name from the Hawaiian for 'reddish water', after the red soil that erosion washes down the gorge it cut through western Kauai.

Which sound did the old Kauai dialect of Hawaiian keep that the standard dialect replaced with 'k'?

The old Kauai dialect kept the 't' sound, so locals said 'Tauai' for their island; the t-for-k pronunciation survives among Niihau speakers.

Which Hawaiian valley is known for a 1,200-foot green rock pinnacle called 'the Needle'?

Iao Valley's Needle, on Maui, is not really a spire: it is the end of a sharp ridge, an erosional remnant that only looks like a pinnacle when seen end-on.

Which Maui town is the county seat?

Wailuku, at the mouth of Iao Valley, has been the seat of Maui County since the county was formed in 1905; neighboring Kahului is the island's commercial hub and largest community.

What are Hawaii's cowboys, working cattle ranches since the 1830s, called?

Paniolo is thought to be a Hawaiian rendering of 'español', the language of the vaqueros hired from California in 1832 to teach Hawaiians how to handle the islands' wild cattle.

What is the name of the voyaging canoe launched in 1975 that sailed to Tahiti without instruments?

Hokulea reached Tahiti in 1976 guided by Mau Piailug, a master navigator from Micronesia, because by then no living Hawaiian knew the old techniques of finding land without instruments.

'Eddie Would Go' honors a lifeguard who vanished doing what after a canoe capsized in 1978?

Paddling for help on his surfboard, Eddie Aikau set out for land and was never seen again; the crew he left clinging to the hulls were rescued by the Coast Guard.

Which seaside town on Hawaii Island has been home to triathlon's Ironman World Championship since 1981?

Kailua-Kona became the race's home when organiser Valerie Silk moved the fast-growing event off busy Oahu; it had begun at Waikiki in 1978 with just 15 starters.

Which atoll is the northwesternmost island in the state of Hawaii?

Kure Atoll is the northwesternmost island in the state of Hawaii and the world's northernmost coral atoll; neighboring Midway Atoll, about 55 miles southeast, is federal territory outside the state.

In 2020 Hawaiians had the longest life expectancy of any US state, at roughly what age?

Hawaii led all states in 2020 with a life expectancy at birth of 80.7 years, ahead of Washington and Minnesota, despite one of the highest costs of living in the country.

The uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands form most of which marine national monument?

Papahānaumokuākea honors Papahānaumoku and Wākea, the ancestral pair whose union, in Hawaiian tradition, gave rise to the islands; the monument is larger than all of America's national parks combined.

The Hawaiian islands were built by an undersea magma source known as what?

A hotspot, a stationary mantle plume, built the chain as the Pacific plate drifted northwest over it, which is why the active volcanoes sit on the youngest island in the southeast.

Which predator did Hawaii's sugar planters import in 1883 to hunt rats, only for it to raid native birds' nests too?

Mongoose are active by day and barely dented the rat population, but they take the hatchlings of ground-nesting birds and endangered sea turtles.

The 'wiki' in Wikipedia is a Hawaiian word that Ward Cunningham borrowed for his 1995 site WikiWikiWeb, meaning what?

Quick is the meaning, and Cunningham took the word from the Wiki Wiki Shuttle bus that runs between the terminals at Hawaii's main airport.

Which pop star, born Peter Hernandez in Hawaii in 1985, first won local fame there as a child impersonator?

Bruno Mars grew up in Waikiki, where his parents met while performing in a show, his mother as a hula dancer and his father as a percussionist.

Which state entered the Union as the 49th, only months before Hawaii followed it as the 50th?

Alaska then leaned Democratic and Hawaii Republican, so a Senate coalition tied the two statehood bids together as one package.

Which nut, brought to Hawaii from Australia in the 1880s, later made the islands the world's top producer?

Macadamia trees in Hawaii all appear to descend from a tiny group of imported trees, possibly a single one, a 2019 genetic study found.

Hawaii's strict quarantine for arriving dogs and cats keeps the islands the only US state free of which disease?

Rabies has never spread within Hawaii: every person diagnosed there was infected somewhere outside the state.

Immigrant plantation workers from which country brought the dessert that became Hawaiian shave ice?

Japan's kakigori, a treat dating to the Heian period and once reserved for the wealthy, is the dessert Hawaiian shave ice derives from.

Which Hawaii surfer returned to professional competition after a tiger shark bit off her left arm in 2003?

Bethany Hamilton was 13 when the 14-foot shark struck, and her memoir Soul Surfer became a 2011 feature film.

Which battleship, on whose deck World War II formally ended in 1945, is now a museum ship at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii?

USS Missouri was the last battleship the United States ever commissioned, and she became a museum ship in Hawaii after being donated in 1998.

Which Hawaiian hand gesture does local lore trace to a sugar mill worker who lost his three middle fingers?

Shaka lore credits Hamana Kalili, whose all-clear wave of thumb and pinkie from a sugar train is said to have been copied by local children.

Which Hawaiian dish of diced raw fish takes its name from a word meaning to slice or cut crosswise?

Poke began as cut-offs from the day's catch, eaten straight away as a snack with nothing more than sea salt and a nut relish.

Which ocean mammals gather in Hawaii's waters each winter to mate and bear calves, yet eat nothing while there?

Humpback whales arrive by the thousands, almost two-thirds of the North Pacific population, after a summer spent feeding on krill in colder seas.

In which sport did Hawaii-born Akebono become the first foreign-born competitor to reach its top rank, in 1993?

Sumo's first foreign-born yokozuna, born Chad Rowan, had been an all-star basketball centre at his Hawaii high school.

Which actor played a private eye who lived on a Hawaiian estate and drove its owner's Ferrari in a 1980s series?

Tom Selleck's Thomas Magnum lived in the guesthouse of Robin's Nest, a 200-acre beachfront estate, as the guest of its never-seen owner, Robin Masters.

Which all-star football game was played at Hawaii's Aloha Stadium for 30 straight seasons, from 1980 through 2009?

Pro Bowl broadcasts from the islands went without John Madden, who declined to join the announcing crew because of his fear of flying.

What is the Hawaiian name for the green sea turtle, a local symbol of good luck and long life?

Honu of the Hawaiian population nest far from the beaches where swimmers meet them, at the protected French Frigate Shoals some 500 miles away.

Which Hawaii senator, a Medal of Honor recipient in office from 1963 to 2012, is the state's main airport named after?

Daniel Inouye lost his right arm fighting in World War II and rose to be president pro tempore of the Senate, third in line to the presidency.

Which Hawaii congresswoman, the first woman of colour elected to Congress, co-authored the Title IX amendment in 1972?

Patsy Mink's amendment was renamed in her honour in 2002: it is now the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act.

Which founder of the Republic of China went to secondary school in Hawaii, where his elder brother supported him?

Sun Yat-sen studied American history in the islands and came to admire figures such as Abraham Lincoln, which shaped his vision of a democratic China.

What do Hawaiians call the underground oven of hot stones in which kalua pig is slowly cooked?

Imu stones take two to three hours to reach full heat, and the word kalua itself means to cook in an underground oven.

Which volcanic cone above Waikiki is called Leahi in Hawaiian, probably for a ridgeline shaped like a tuna's fin?

Diamond Head owes its English name to British sailors who mistook calcite crystals sparkling near the crater for diamonds.

Which tech billionaire bought 98 percent of one of Hawaii's six largest islands in 2012?

Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, bought the land from the Castle & Cooke company and moved to the island in 2020, during the pandemic.

Which birds roam wild all over Kauai, a boom often blamed on a 1992 hurricane that scattered backyard flocks?

Chickens multiplied after Hurricane Iniki is thought to have blown apart coops across the island, some of them housing fighting birds.

Which district on Hawaii Island's western side gives its name to coffee grown on the slopes of Hualalai and Mauna Loa?

Kona got its first coffee plants in 1828, when the missionary Samuel Ruggles brought in cuttings of Brazilian stock.

Which remote Maui town is reached by a highway known for about 620 curves and 59 bridges?

Hana is only about 52 miles from Maui's main airport, yet the drive takes some two and a half hours, as 46 of the bridges are one lane wide.

Which atoll, site of a decisive 1942 naval battle, is the only part of the Hawaiian chain outside the state of Hawaii?

Midway was claimed for the United States by a Navy captain in 1867, so the 1900 law that defined the territory by the islands annexed in 1898 left it out.

Which kind of natural disaster destroyed the bayfront of Hilo twice, in 1946 and again in 1960?

Tsunami waves from an earthquake near the Aleutian Islands reached Hilo in under five hours in 1946, and the disaster led to a tsunami warning system for the Pacific.

Which kind of tree, planted in a Lahaina square in 1873, grew 16 trunks and came to cover two-thirds of an acre?

Banyan trees spread by dropping aerial roots that thicken into new trunks, and this one arrived as an eight-foot seedling, a gift from missionaries in India.

Which stretch of Kauai shoreline, where cliffs rise up to 4,000 feet, has the Kalalau Trail as its only land access?

Na Pali Coast hikers cross five major valleys on the 11-mile trail before it ends at Kalalau Beach, and no road runs anywhere along the coast.

Which mineral, called peridot when it is of gem quality, gives Papakolea Beach on Hawaii Island its green sand?

Olivine is denser than the volcanic ash it erodes out of, so the sea sweeps the ash away and leaves the green crystals piled on the beach.

Which town on Kauai's east side, served by the island's main airport, is the seat of Kauai County?

Lihue is not even the largest town on the island: Kapaa, about eight miles up the coast road, has roughly half as many people again.

Which family has owned a whole Hawaiian island since their ancestor Elizabeth Sinclair bought it from the king in 1864?

The Robinsons trace their title to a price of $10,000 in gold, and a later owner, Aubrey Robinson, planted some 10,000 trees a year on the dry island.

Which Oahu snorkelling bay, formed inside a volcanic crater, became Hawaii's first Marine Life Conservation District?

Hanauma Bay was blasted out by eruptions on the sea floor about 32,000 years ago, and at its busiest it drew more than three million visitors a year.

Which national road network includes Hawaii's H-1, H-2 and H-3 freeways, though none can ever cross a state line?

Interstate Highways reach Hawaii despite the lack of any land link to another state, and H-3 was among the costliest ever built, at about $80 million a mile.

Which Hawaii Island cattle ranch began in 1847 on land granted to a man who cleared feral bulls for the king?

Parker Ranch predates many of the famous mainland ranches by more than 30 years, and at about 130,000 acres it ranks among the largest in the United States.

Which crescent-shaped islet, the rim of a sunken crater off Maui, shelters snorkellers from the channel's currents?

Molokini's curved wall keeps the water inside clear to about 150 feet, while divers also drop down the 300-foot sheer cliff on its outer side.

Which big-wave break off Maui, called Peahi in Hawaiian, did local surfers nickname in 1975 for its sudden danger?

Jaws got its name from three Maui surfers who likened its sudden shift to huge waves to a shark attack, and its faces can top 60 feet in winter.

Which arm of Hawaii's state government runs Kalawao County, home of the former Kalaupapa leprosy settlement?

Department of Health directors double as mayor of Kalawao, the smallest county by land area in the 50 states, which had 82 residents at the 2020 census.

Which islet in the middle of Pearl Harbor had seven US battleships moored along its shore on December 7, 1941?

Ford Island sat where the harbour was deepest, which is why the fleet's biggest ships tied up there, and landfill had enlarged it by about a third in the 1930s.

In which Hawaii Island bay was the first European captain known to reach the islands killed in a clash in 1779?

Kealakekua Bay had welcomed his ships during Makahiki, a traditionally peaceful season, but storm damage to a mast soon forced them back into a far cooler reception.