Contested facts

Years with no event found: 1820, 1829

• 1820. Lévesque’s History of Micronesia vol. 21 lists a document dated 1820 (“1820D”) about Carolinian immigrants from Lamotrek, but its title dates their arrival to 1819, so no 1820 event was entered (Habele, HOM vol. 21). The Carolinian migration to Saipan began around 1815 (Wikipedia, Carolinian people). None of the MicSem ship lists has a 1820–1822 entry for FSM islands.
• 1829. None of the four MicSem ship lists, the HOM vol. 22 contents, or the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau Caroline Islands catalogue gave an 1829 event. The 1828 whaler Mary Mitchell at Kosrae is dated only “c.” in the MicSem list (MicSem ship list: Kosrae).
• Undated storm left out. Girschner’s oral sources describe a severe typhoon and storm surge on Pohnpei in the “mid 1820s.” Lee Ling warns the date may be wrong and that it may be the 1868 storm, so it is not in the table (Lee Ling, Typhoons).
• Gap in the Pohnpei ship list. The online MicSem Pohnpei ship list is cut off partway through 1858, mid-entry. Pohnpei rows for 1859–1885 come from Hezel’s disease article, Vance et al., and Lee Ling, so they cover mostly epidemics. Pohnpei’s chiefdom wars and Nahnmwarki successions in 1859–1885 are not dated in any source used here. Hanlon’s Upon a Stone Altar and Lévesque’s HOM vols. 24–31 would fill this gap, but they were not consulted for this site (the online HOM PDFs could not be opened).
• Conflicts to keep visible:
  • Lütke’s arrival at Kosrae: 6 Dec 1827 in the MicSem list, 8 Dec in the COM-FSM outline.
  • Harriet/Henrietta: 1842 or 1843.
  • The Carl’s Mortlocks raid: c.1871 with about 20 taken, or Jan 1872 with 47 taken.
  • Cheyne’s second Yap epidemic: 1863 or Feb 1864.
  • O’Keefe’s arrival: late 1872 or early 1873 in Hezel; the MicSem Yap list instead has him picked up in 1871 after the Belvidere wreck, a story Hezel rejects.
  • Iltis flag-raising: 25 Aug per Habele and German sources, 26 Aug in the MicSem list.
  • Maigret’s stay: seven months per his diary, six per MicSem.
  • Mwot training school: 1879 per the COM-FSM outline, 1882 per Habele.
  • Kosrae’s population low: under 200 by 1880 per the COM-FSM outline, about 300 c.1890 per Hezel.
• 1880 Kosrae king. The COM-FSM outline says “Sru I” was elected king in 1880, which looks like a slip for a later Sru, so it was left out.
• Sources not cited. Wikipedia “Carolines Question” (2 Aug 1885) was not consulted for this site and is not cited. Every other source cited for these years was consulted directly.

Years with no event found: none. Every year from 1886 to 1914 has at least one sourced event.

• Thinnest years: 1888, 1895 and 1902 rest mostly on single mission or compiled sources. 1902 has one solid row (Kosrae Christian Endeavor) plus two “weak” Wikipedia-mirror rows.
• Thinnest islands: Kosrae’s German-era events come almost entirely from the COM-FSM Kosrae outline, a compiled teaching page that warns its details differ from other sources. Chuuk has nothing between 1903 and 1907.
• Unresolved conflicts:
  • Yap’s first governor: Manuel de Elisa (Elisa Vergara) or Mariano Torres de Navarro. Both names come from COM-FSM pages.
  • Luis Cadarso’s posting: Cabello and MicSem put him on Pohnpei from 1887 to 1891. The Revista General de Marina (Nov 2025) puts him in the Western Carolines (Yap) from 1887 to 1890 (RGM).
  • Boeder’s start: 1909 (dewiki) or 1910 (MicSem).
  • Start of German Capuchin rule: 1903 (COM-FSM) or the decree of 7 Nov 1904 (MicSem). The likely reading is that the first German friars came in 1903 and the formal transfer followed in 1904.
  • Saipan coming under Yap: April 1906 (dewiki) or the 27 Feb 1907 decree (dewiki; Habele says 1907).
  • Yap cable: laid 1904 (atlantic-cable.com), opened 1905 (MicSem).
• Not found:
  • Exact October 1914 landing dates for each island.
  • A dated Liebenzell Mission arrival in Chuuk. MicSem says only “early 1900s” (MicSem).
  • German-era copra export figures.
  • The Woleai 1907 death toll.
  • Any Spanish post in Chuuk.
• Partly consulted: MicSem’s Yap page is cited at the www.micsem.org/pubs/books/catholic/yap/ address, because the micsem.org/pubs/books/catholic/yap/index.htm address shows a verification screen instead. The last ~20–30% of the MicSem Pohnpei and Chuuk pages was not consulted for this site.

Years with no event found:

• None. Every year from 1914 to 1945 has at least one sourced row.
• Thin years: 1916 has only naval post-office records (weak); 1925 has only branch-head appointments; 1928 has only one weak school-founding row.

Notes on conflicts and gaps:

• Kosrae: none of the sources used here gives the October 1914 occupation date. It was never a separate branch office; it came under Ponape, then the Eastern Branch from 1943.
• Spanish Jesuit return: March 1921 (Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific) or 1922 (MicSem).
• First Ponape raid: 14 February 1944 (Pacific Wrecks) or 15 February 1944 (Japanese Wikipedia). Pacific Wrecks lists missions to 6 February 1945; Japanese Wikipedia says major attacks ended in May 1944.
• Yap surrender: 2 September 1945 (JACAR, start of occupation) or 5 September 1945 (Pacific Wrecks, Eto aboard USS Tillman).
• Eastern Branch merger: 5 November 1943 (JACAR) or 4 November 1943 (one Japanese Wikipedia entry).
• 49th IMB on Yap: formed 9 July 1944 (JACAR) or reorganized May 1944 (English Wikipedia).
• 1926 school row: Japanese Wikipedia, as consulted for this site, dates the U and Ponape Japanese schools to 1926, while an earlier reading of the sources dated the Kusaie school to 1926. 『南洋群島教育史』 (1938) could settle this.
• Not found: 1925, 1930 and 1940 island-level census tables; any typhoon in 1914–45; shrine founding dates for the four island groups; a Japanese record of the Sokehs return. The Habele pages on State Shinto and the Puluwat lighthouse could not be opened, so they were not consulted for this site.

Years with no event found: none. Every year from 1946 to 1979 has at least one sourced row. The thinnest years have only administrative or “(weak)” rows:

• 1950: only administrator appointments.
• 1954: year inferred from the newsletter’s context. Hedges was District Administrator (1953–58), and Frank Midkiff, High Commissioner in 1953–54, visited.
• 1955: a scholarship and an administrator change.

• 1956: one UN report plus administrative items.

• Trusteeship date. The Security Council adopted Resolution 21 on 2 Apr 1947, and the US joint resolution followed on 18 Jul 1947. Jensen’s “12 Apr 1947” looks wrong. The 2 Apr date is widely given, but no source used here confirms it.

• PICS name and dates.
  • Bailey Olter HS (Wikipedia) says it opened on Guam in 1947 as the Mariana Islands Teacher Training School, became PITTS on Truk in 1948, moved to Ponape in 1959, and was later renamed PICS.
  • The Francis Nuuan article says he graduated from “PICS in Kolonia” in 1951. That conflicts with the school being on Truk in 1951, so that detail was not used.
• College dates. The College of Micronesia’s origins are dated variously: MTEC 1963 (one source says 1962), CCM 1969 or 1970, and the COM system in 1975, 1976 or 1978.
• Senate presidency. Who led the Congress Senate in 1965–73 is disputed. Wikipedia, the FSM Government and Hanlon differ; Hanlon says Nakayama from 1968. The 1972 election page says Nakayama became Senate President after the Nov 1972 election.

• Typhoon Ophelia. There are two storms of this name:

  • Jan 1958: hit Jaluit (Marshalls) on 7 Jan, then Ponape, Truk and Yap.
  • Nov 1960: hit Ulithi on 30 Nov.

  Placing “Ophelia 1958” on Ulithi mixes up the two.

• Statehood date. WorldStatesmen’s “1 May 1978” statehood for Ponape, Kosrae and Yap lacks a second source. Its Truk entry reads “7 Oct 1977: Truk district” without explanation.

• Nan Madol. Only the NRIS number 74002226 and a 19 Dec 1974 NPGallery date were confirmed. The National Historic Landmark designation and exact listing date were not verified.
• 1946 Bikini test. The 25 Jul 1946 Bikini test (Jensen) was left out because it happened in the Marshalls, outside the FSM.
• Not verified, so not used: a 1963 polio epidemic within the FSM (the outbreak was in the Marshalls; Ponape reported no cases by 8 Mar 1963), the Con-Con closing date (often given as 8 Nov 1975), and Chuuk damage from Typhoon Pamela in 1976.

Years with no event found:

• None. Every year from 1980 to 2002 has at least four sourced rows.
• Thinnest year: 1980 (4 rows, mostly the Compact and the census). 1981 has 9 rows, but two are weak (the DR-647 fire and the Faichuk veto). The National Union volumes 1–3 (1980–1982) are missing from the COM-FSM archive, so state-level news for those years is scarce.

Gaps and cautions (not events):

• Exact dates not found: the 1989 move to Palikir; the 1991 and 1995 election days (sources say “March”); the 1999 convention referendum; the start of Compact II talks.
• No dated source was found for FSM’s admission to the South Pacific Forum or the South Pacific Commission. A 1983 newsletter shows the FSM already paying $4,000 a year to the SPC (National Union, 30 Sep 1983).
• No source for the Owen, Russ, Yuri or Axel death tolls was consulted for this site; those rows give only US declarations.
• Rows citing an unmission.fm year-archive listing rely on the headline, date and summary shown on that listing page; the individual posts were not consulted for this site.
• Rows carried over from earlier research for this site keep the URL recorded then; those pages were not consulted again.

Years with no event found: none. Every year from 2003 to 2026 has at least three rows.

Thinly sourced years:

• 2012 and 2013 rest partly on archive headlines and Wikipedia.
• 2016 and 2017 have only four rows each.

Conflicting dates kept in the table

• Simina’s start as Chuuk governor. 19 Apr 2005 (WorldStatesmen) or July 2005 (gov.fm).
• 4th Convention delegate election. 4 Nov 2019 or 5 Nov 2019; both dates come from Wikipedia pages.
• Chuuk veto override. 6 Dec 2018 (Pacific Island Times), against Wikipedia’s 6 Dec 2019.
• Typhoon Wutip. 22 Feb 2019 (Pacific Island Times, April 2019) or 11 Mar (Pacific Island Times, March 2019). The February declaration supports late February.
• Konman’s election. 12 Nov 2021 (election day) or 29 Nov 2021 (certification).
• Forum walkout. 8 or 9 Feb 2021.
• Chieng’s death. About 22 May 2025, or 28 May 2025 per a gov.fm summary.
• East Micronesia Cable landing. 18 Aug 2025 (gov.fm) or early September 2025 (SubTel Forum).
• Sinlaku. Death toll reported as 1 (Wikipedia), 4 (PINA), 5 plus 1 missing (WHO) or 7 (OCHA preliminary). Wikipedia also dates landfall to 17 Apr, against 9–12 Apr in UN reports.

Not found

• Exact polling dates for the 2015 elections (inferred as about 3 Mar 2015 because the Chuuk plebiscite was set to coincide) and for the 2023 elections (7 Mar is supported only through PacWIP).
• Outcome of the April 2013 Chuuk governor’s run-off. WorldStatesmen implies Elimo stayed in office.
• Content of the July 2026 special session.
• Exact day of the 2016 UNESCO inscription. The decision page gives only the 40th session in Istanbul.

Sources that could not be used

• UH ScholarSpace annual “Micronesia in Review” articles, the best year-by-year source, sit behind an access check and were not consulted for this site.
• The Chinese foreign ministry page on Christian’s March 2017 China visit could not be opened, so that visit is omitted.