Short answers, pulled from the story.
Midway Atoll is located in the North Pacific Ocean, approximately 1,310 miles northwest of Honolulu, Hawaii, roughly equidistant between North America and Asia. It lies about 2,800 nautical miles from San Francisco and 2,200 nautical miles from Tokyo, near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian Archipelago.
Midway Atoll was excluded from the state of Hawaii by the Hawaii Admission Act of 1959, which specifically named Midway along with Palmyra Island, Johnston Island, and Kingman Reef as territories not to be inherited by the new state. It was assumed that the United States acquired Midway independently when Captain William Reynolds took formal possession in 1867, separate from the Hawaiian Islands annexed by the Newlands Resolution of 1898.
On the 4th of June, 1942, U.S. forces launched a devastating attack on a Japanese fleet near Midway, sinking four Japanese fleet aircraft carriers and destroying hundreds of aircraft. The losses proved irreplaceable for Japan and are widely considered the turning point in the Pacific campaign of World War II. Aircraft from Henderson Field on Eastern Island participated alongside U.S. Navy ships and carrier planes.
Midway Atoll hosts 67 to 70 percent of the world's Laysan albatross population and 34 to 39 percent of all black-footed albatrosses on Earth. The atoll also shelters critically endangered Hawaiian monk seals, green sea turtles, a resident pod of 300 spinner dolphins, and breeding habitat for 17 seabird species, across over 250 species of marine life in its lagoon and surrounding waters.
Of the roughly 1.5 million Laysan albatrosses that breed on Midway each winter, nearly all carry plastic in their digestive systems. Adult albatrosses mistake plastic fragments for squid and fish and feed approximately 5 tons of debris to their chicks each year. Because chicks cannot regurgitate until they are four months old, about one-third of them die, and a single bird can have up to 50 percent of its intestinal tract filled with plastic.
Naval Air Facility Midway Island closed operationally on the 10th of September, 1993, as part of the Base Realignment and Closure process. The last Navy personnel departed on the 30th of June, 1997, after completing an environmental cleanup program. Jurisdiction over the atoll was transferred to the Department of the Interior by Executive Order 13022, signed by President Bill Clinton on the 31st of October, 1996.