History
The first human settlement of Bougainville occurred some 28,000 years ago from New Ireland. Three to four thousand years ago, Austronesian people arrived, bringing with them domesticated pigs, chickens, dogs and obsidian tools. The first European contact with Bougainville was in 1768, when the French explorer Louis de Bougainville arrived and named the main island for himself. Germany laid claim to Bougainville in 1899, annexing it into German New Guinea. Christianity arrived on the island in 1902.
During World War I, Australia occupied German New Guinea, including Bougainville, taking it over as part of a League of Nations mandate.
In 1942 during World War II, Japan invaded the island, but it was returned to Australian control in 1946. Bougainville became part of an independent Papua New Guinea in 1975.
A civil war broke out, and the independence of Bougainville was declared twice, once in 1975 and once in 1990. Peace talks brokered by New Zealand began in 1997, leading to autonomy for the island.
Read more about this topic: Bougainville Island
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)