Hawaii Annexed: McKinley Signs Newlands Resolution
President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution on July 7, 1898, formally annexing Hawaii as a U.S. territory, five years after American businessmen and Marines had overthrown Queen Liliuokalani in a coup. The annexation was driven less by sugar profits than by military strategy: the Spanish-American War had just begun, and Pearl Harbor offered the Navy an irreplaceable coaling station in the central Pacific. Hawaii's indigenous population, which had already declined from roughly 300,000 at European contact to about 40,000, lost its last claim to sovereignty. The islands would not gain statehood until 1959, remaining a territory for over sixty years.
July 7, 1898
128 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on July 7
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