In 1817 Russia had forts both in California and in Hawaii: Fort Ross north of San Francisco and Fort Elizabeth on Kauai.
The Hawaiian one flew the Russian flag for less than a year.
The events
- A Russian fort in Hawaii1817 · Kauai, Hawaii. Georg Schäffer, a German doctor working for the Russian-American Company, persuaded Kauai's chief Kaumualiʻi to accept Alexander I's protection and in 1817 built the stone Fort Elizabeth at Waimea under a Russian flag. The tsar had not asked for it, and by autumn the Hawaiians had expelled him.
- Kamehameha I unites Hawaii1810 · Hawaiian Islands. After years of war the chief Kamehameha conquered the islands, and in 1810 the ruler of Kauaʻi accepted his rule. The Kingdom of Hawaii he founded lasted until American planters overthrew the monarchy in 1893.
More amazing facts
- 1815 Two months before Waterloo, in April 1815, Indonesia's Tambora erupted — its ash brought the 'Year Without a Summer' to Europe and North America.
- 1815 Napoleon's Hundred Days actually lasted 110, from his return to Paris on 20 March 1815 to Louis XVIII's restoration on 8 July.
- 1815 · 1819 Modern Singapore is younger than the Battle of Waterloo: Stamford Raffles set up the British trading post there in 1819, four years after Napoleon's defeat.
- 1815 · 1817 The bicycle may owe its birth to a volcano.
- 1816 · 1819 The same rainy summer of 1816 that produced Frankenstein also gave birth to the aristocratic vampire, ancestor of Dracula.
- 1816 The stethoscope was invented out of embarrassment.