The United States Marines arrived on the Marshall Islands in February of 1944 towards the end of WW 2. They kept these islands for nuclear testing and later to establish the Ronald Reagan Missile Defense Test Site which today is the leading missile testing facility of the United States. This base, located in Kwajalein Atoll, is the subject of great controversy in the relationship between the Marshall Islands and the United States, as the US wishes to keep it for another 75 years without a fair and honest payment for its use. People of the Marshall Islands are suspicious of the American intentions because, as a result of the nuclear tests, many of the islands are contaminated FOREVER, and people who were exposed do not get the medical attention the United States promised. Because of the close relationship between the countries, Marshallese can enter the United States as if they were citizens and vice versa, and Marshallese youngsters fight in Iraq and Afghanistan to this day, adding a REMARKABLE twist in the unique bond of friendship between the Marshall Islands and the United States.
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The Marshall Islands were sold to Germany and became part of German New Guinea.
The first European explorers to reach the Gilbert Islands were Captain Thomas Gilbert of the Charlotte and Captain John Marshall of the Scarborough in 1788. However, they didn't try to land on any of the islands, and they weren't even known as "the Gilbert Islands" back then.In 1820, Adam Johann von Krusenstern, an Estonian admiral of the Russian czar, named them the îles Gilbert (the Gilbert Islands) and the nearby îles Marshall (the Marshall Islands) in French.
American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands.
the islands
Japan Attack of Pearl Harbor in 1941, and also invasions and occupations of US Territories-- Philippines, Guam, Midway, Marshall Islands, Northern Marianas, and American Samoa. Britain Successfully invaded the US during the War of 1812 but strategically failed to occupy the US.