Hawaii (S5.09)

June 7, 2022June 7, 2022 / lukejkelly / Leave a comment

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Hawaii, and specifically the Big Island of Hawaii. Which is also called Hawaii.

Hawaii is the southeasternmost of the Hawaiian Islands, which make up the US state of Hawaii. The island makes up 63% of the archipelago’s landmass, but only 13% of its total population. The island is the third largest island in Polynesia, behind the two main islands of New Zealand. With a total area of around 10,000 km2 (or 4,000 square miles), Hawaii is similar in size to the islands of Puerto Rico or Cyprus, or our old friend Gambia.

With a rich history and culture, Hawaii and its sister islands flourished as ancient societies, developing unique religions and customs, that is until the arrival of one Captain James Cook. In 1779 the famous explorer made his second and final landing here, and would not make it off the island alive. By the end of the century, the islands came under the protection of the British Crown, and missionaries soon followed, changing island life forever. The 1800s brought modern developments and the consolidation of the Kingdom of Hawaii, but ended in the annexation of the territory by the United States, a controversial episode to this day. In 1959, Hawaii becomes the 50th State, now famous for tourism, spam and pineapples. Hawaii Island, also known simply as The Big Island, is today home to around 185,000 people, and due to ongoing volcanic activity, Hawaii is the only US state that is still growing.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Dublin, Ireland, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Galway, Ireland. Our theme music and other stings come from Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella. Thanks to Kuʻu Kauanoe one of the hosts of the Offshore Podcast from Honolulu Civil Beat, for speaking to us for this episode – you will hear clips from her interview throughout.

The city of Hilo in 1907

Some further reading material is provided below:

A great website for all things Big Island is Love Big Island, and is particularly useful for tourists wishing to visit, but also helped us with plenty of history.
Rethinking the Native Hawaiian Past By Kanalu G. Terry Young is available on Google Books.
For more on the Kapu system, see storymaps.com
Hawaii: The Aloha State By Robin Doak has a lot more on the process of annexation, which you can find on Google Books.
The Eisenhower Library has more on Hawaii’s journey to statehood, which you can find here.
Smithsonian Magazine has an excellent article on Liliʻuokalani, the Last Queen of Hawaiʻi.
The Stuff You Should Know episode on the annexation is available here. Thanks, Josh and Chuck!
Richard B Frank’s article in TIME, headlined How Hawaii’s Japanese Population Was Spared Internment During World War II was a key source for that section of the show.
For more on the totally not supervillian Starfish Prime, you can check out this article in Discover Magazine.
Hawaii Beef also has lots of info on cattle farming on the islands.
Finally, the season of the Offshore Podcast on race relations in Hawaii can be found here. It’s definitely worth a listen.

green-sand-beach-hawaii-pictures — Check out that green sand!

The music used in this episode is as follows:

George Ku Trio – Na Alii
Hawaiian Kahiko Hula: Sonny Ching “O Ke Ahi Lonomakua”
HOLO HOLO KAA Hawaiian Song Music 1949
Hawaiian War Chant – Ames Brothers

Thanks to all our patrons who support the show. We really appreciate your continued backing of us. If you want to join them, more information is available at www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast

Djibouti (S4.03)

September 9, 2019September 7, 2019 / lukejkelly / Leave a comment

S04E03 Djibouti Audio

In this episode of 80 Days: An Exploration Podcast, we’ll be talking about Djibouti, a small nation located on the Northeast Coast of the Horn of Africa. Bordered by Eritrea to the North, Ethiopia to the West and Somalia to the south, Djibouti lies on the west side of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the narrowest point of Gulf of Aden.

Around 30km across the strait lies Yemen. This chokepoint into the Red Sea, which overlooks the approaches to the Suez Canal, has long made Djibouti a desirable location for naval bases. Dominated by two main groups – the Afar and Issa Somali people, Djibouti today is balanced between these two factions, having endured a protracted civil war in the wake of winning its independence from France in 1977. Occupying a total area of around 23,000 km2 (9,000 sq mi), Djibouti is the third smallest country in continental Africa, and today has a population of around 880,000, the vast majority of whom live in the captial city of Djibouti City. Nearly 94% of the population is Muslim while the remaining 6% are Christian, and official languages are French and Arabic. Djibouti today attracts plenty of foreign investment, and aims to become “Africa’s Dubai.”

This episode, just like all of our recent ones, is supported by our Patreon backers. If you want to help out the show, you can help out by joining us over on www.patreon.com/80dayspodcast to give us whatever you can in terms of financial support and avail of all the lovely awards and extras that entitles you to. If you’re unable to support us financially, you can always leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Hong Kong, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Ireland . (Theme music by Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella)

Some further reading:

Peter Tyson, writing for PBS Nova, attempts to tackle the “Where Is Punt” question here.
Brittanica has loads of additional info on Adal and the Adal Sultanate, discussed by Joe in this episode.
You can find additional info on the Ifat Sultanate which succeeded it at openedition.org.
The New World Encyclopedia has a wonderful, long form post on the Scramble for Africa, which Djibouti was caught up in.
For more info on our old friend Ferdinand de Lesseps and his ill-fated other canal project, you can listen to our season one episode on Panama.
We also touch on old friend Vasco Da Gama in this episode. The Christmas special minisode referenced is here.
The disastrous Cossack invasion of Sagallo in what was then French Somaliland is profiled in an excellent blog by towardsthegreatocean.com, which Luke quotes from in this episode.
Bruno Macaes profiles modern Djibouti in a recent article for Politico, entitled “The most valuable military real estate in the world.”
The LSE has a long-form article on Somali regiments during WW1.
The Guardian also profiles the “forgotten Muslim heroes who fought for Britain in the trenches” in WW1.
You can read the New York Time report on Djibouti’s declaration of independence in 1977 in the paper’s archives here.
To learn more about the Djiboutian Civil War, which broke out in 1991, see New World Encyclopedia’s lengthy article on the conflict here.
The plans to turn modern Djibouti into “Africa’s Dubai” are detailed by The Culture Trip here.
The SCMP journalist James Jeffrey details his experiences with the new Chinese-backed railway revitalisation project here.

Pitcairn Island (S4.02)

August 12, 2019 / lukejkelly / 1 Comment

S04E02 Pitcairn Island Audio

In this episode of 80 Days: an exploration podcast, we’ll be talking about Pitcairn Island, a tiny volcanic island in the South Pacific, most famous for its mutineer inhabitants, who fled there after the famous Mutiny on the Bounty in 1789.

Pitcairn forms part of a four-island group known as the Pitcairn Islands, but is the only island in the group to be inhabited. Its nearest inhabited neighbours are Easter Island to the East and French Polynesia to the West. Pitcairn is the least populous national jurisdiction in the world, and by far the smallest place we’ve ever talked about in terms of population, boasting only around 50 residents as of 2018, all descended from the 9 Bounty mutineers and the few Tahitians they brought with them to the island. The island itself is rocky, and experiences warm weather year-round thanks to its location just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Today, Pitcairn is the only remaining British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific. Its economy relies heavily on tourism, as well as the highly-prized honey produced by the bees on the island. While all islanders speak English, their first language is Pitkern, a creole language that has derived from 18-century English dialects and Tahitian.

Your hosts, as always, are Luke Kelly @thelukejkelly in Hong Kong, Mark Boyle @markboyle86 in the UK, and Joe Byrne @anbeirneach in Ireland . (Theme music by Thomas O’Boyle @thatthomasfella)

Some further reading:

The Pitcairn Islands Study Centre has more info on the early history of the island group.
Joe speaks about his use of Librivox for this episode. He listened to both The Mutiny of the Bounty and Other Narratives by William Bligh and The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause and Consequences by Sir John Barrow, both giving markedly different accounts of the mutiny.
You can read/listen to more on the conspiracy theories surrounding the fate of Fletcher Christian on Skeptoid.
Sir Joseph Banks, the man behind the expedition, is profiled here in Britannica.
Two of the books mentioned by Luke include Mutiny on the Bounty by Peter Fitzsimons and The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander.
Byron’s The Island, inspired by the mutiny and discussed in this episode, can be found here.
An extended version of Mel Gibson’s “I am in hell” scene, a clip of which is used in this episode, can be found here on YouTube.
More on Pandora’s Box and the escape from the HMS Pandora can be found here.
The New Zealand Herald has a feature on the child abuse scandal on Pitcairn, and the island’s struggle to attract residents is detailed here in The Telegraph.
The European Commission has plenty of detail on the economy of the island here.
You can watch Errol Flynn’s 1933 film In the Wake of the Bounty here on YouTube.