Short answers, pulled from the story.
On the 19th of September 1994, the volcanoes Tavurvur and Vulcan erupted simultaneously, sending ash thousands of metres into the air. The resulting ashfall caused 80% of the buildings in Rabaul to collapse. Five people were killed, and the provincial capital was subsequently moved to Kokopo, about 20 kilometres away.
Japan captured Rabaul in January 1942 and developed it into its main base of military and naval activity in the South Pacific. By 1943 approximately 110,000 Japanese troops were stationed there, and the enclosed Simpson Harbour was a key strategic asset for the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Operation Vengeance was a United States mission conducted on the 18th of April 1943 to shoot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. Yamamoto took off from Rabaul on an inspection tour, and after American cryptographers decrypted his flight itinerary, sixteen P-38 fighters flew from Guadalcanal and intercepted his aircraft over south Bougainville, killing him.
Rabaul has been destroyed by volcanic eruptions twice: on the 6th of June 1937, when Tavurvur and Vulcan exploded and killed 507 people, and again on the 19th of September 1994, when the same two volcanoes erupted and collapsed 80% of the town's buildings.
The Rabaul Strike of 1929 was the first industrial strike in Papua New Guinea's history. It took place in Rabaul during the period of Australian administration of the Territory of New Guinea.
Rabaul is a township in the East New Britain province of Papua New Guinea, situated on the island of New Britain about 600 kilometres east of the island of New Guinea. Papua New Guinea became independent from Australian administration in 1975, and Rabaul's current provincial capital functions have been held by Kokopo since the 1994 eruption.