Portal:Islands/Selected article/80
Wake Island (Marshallese: Ānen Kio, lit. 'island of the kio flower'), also known as Wake Atoll, is a coral atoll in the Micronesia subregion of the Pacific Ocean. The atoll is composed of three islets and a reef surrounding a lagoon. The nearest inhabited island is Utirik Atoll in the Marshall Islands, located 592 miles (953 kilometers) to the southeast.
The island may have been found by prehistoric Austronesian mariners before its first recorded discovery by Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira in 1568. After this, ships visited the area until it was claimed by the United States in 1899. The island had little development until 1935, when Pan American Airways constructed an airfield and hotel as a waypoint for trans-Pacific flying boats. Japan seized the island at the opening of the Pacific Theatre of World War II in December 1941, and it remained under Japanese occupation until the end of the war in September 1945. After trans-Pacific layovers by Pan American Airways ceased in 1972 due to their use of Boeing 747s, administration was taken over by the United States Air Force, which used the atoll as a processing location for Vietnamese refugees during Operation New Life in 1975. (Full article...)