So here's what I managed to dig up about the independent Kingdom of Hawai'i, summarized in the inimitable Dirk Montgomery style. (Oh yeah, one quick aside. Mainlanders probably aren't used to seeing Hawai'i spelt with the apostrophe. Back in the weird old days, when the islands were actually a state of the now-defunct U.S., the name had been spelt Hawaii . No longer, chummer. An easy way to slot off an islander is to spell the name of his country without the apostrophe. An easier way is to mispronounce it, apparently: it should be pronounced ha-VEYE-ee, with a noticeable glottal stop before the last syllable. At first I thought this anal retentiveness about pronunciation was stupid, but then I considered what I'd think of someone who pronounced my city of birth as SEE-tul . Point taken.)