Curated playlist
Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean
- Marshall IslandsThe Marshall Islands is 98.62 percent water. No other sovereign state has so much ocean against so little land.
- TuvaluA deacon caught in a storm drifted for eight weeks and brought Christianity to Tuvalu.
- PalauPalau is an island country made up of roughly 340 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, with a total land area of only 466 square kilometres. That makes it the sixteenth smallest nation in the world. Its own name for the islands is Belau,…
- Kuril IslandsA 2006 earthquake in the Kuril Islands sent tsunami waves up to 5 feet high to California.
- VanuatuOn the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, villagers of the Yaohnanen tribe revere Britain's Prince Philip as a god. Their belief rests on an ancient story about the pale-skinned son of a mountain spirit. According to the tale, he ventured across…
- Caroline IslandsOn Yap in the Caroline Islands, stone discs up to 12 feet wide serve as money. A stone can change owners unmoved.
- SamoaSamoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa, once deleted a whole day from its calendar. Friday, the 30th of December 2011, never happened there. At the end of that month the island country moved its clocks from UTC-11 to UTC+13. The…
- New ZealandNew Zealand was the last large habitable land on Earth to be settled by humans.
- East IndiesColumbus's mistake helped create the name East Indies. He thought he reached Asia, so his find became the West Indies.
- Hawaiian IslandsThe Hawaiian Islands, called Mokupuni Hawaii in the Hawaiian language, run for some 1500 miles across the North Pacific Ocean. The island of Hawaii anchors the southern end, and Kure Atoll marks the far northern tip. The nearest continent…