Short answers, pulled from the story.
Portuguese sailors landed on the uninhabited island in 1507 after being blown off course from their route to India via the Mozambique channel. They named it Ilha do Cirne or Ilha do Cerne, a name likely derived from a ship called Cisne captained by Diogo Fernandes Pereira.
A Dutch squadron under Admiral Wybrand van Warwyck arrived at Grand Port in 1598 and renamed the island Mauritius after Prince Maurice of Nassau. The Dutch abandoned the island entirely by 1710, leaving behind long-tailed macaque monkeys that would later destroy everything in sight.
British officials forcibly expelled over 1,000 Chagossians to Mauritius and the Seychelles between 1968 and 1973 as part of creating the British Indian Ocean Territory. During this deportation, British officials ordered the island's dog population of 1,000 to be gassed while only Diego Garcia remains inhabited today.
Independence was proclaimed on the 12th of March 1968 with Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam becoming the first prime minister while Queen Elizabeth II remained head of state. Universal adult suffrage had come into effect earlier on the 9th of March 1959 allowing all adults who could write their name in any of the island's nineteen languages to vote.
The Mauritian flying fox stands as the only remaining mammal endemic to the island though it faced severe culling starting in November 2015. In October 2018 authorities authorised the cull of 20% of the fruit bat population amounting to 13,000 bats from an estimated 65,000 remaining.