Howland Island: From the History of US Expansion in the Pacific

The article describes the capture of Howland and Baker islands on the Equator in the central part of the Pacific by the United States of America, they have remained US possessions up to the present time. The role of US government bodies and companies extracting guano as fertilizer; the Guano Islands Act (1856); the project for colonization of several islands of Oceania in the 1930s; certain developments in the pre-war international politics and the Second World War related to Oceania islands, are explained. It is argued that no serious changes in the situation of those two islands should be anticipated in the nearest decade, however, much depends on further relations between the US and the states of Oceania as well as on activities of China in this region.