| Marianas Islands |
Website Links For Mariana Islands |
Information AboutMarianas Islands |
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They are the southern part of a Submerged Mountain Range that extends 1,565 miles (2,519 km) from Guam to near Japan . The Marianas are the northernmost islands of a larger island group called Micronesia . The Marianas have a total land area of 396 square miles (1026 km&2) and are composed of two administrative units:
The first Europe an to discover the island group was Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 . In 1667 Spain formally claimed them, and named them after Spanish Queen Mariana Of Austria . Following the Spanish-American War , Spain ceded Guam to the United States, and sold the northern remainder to Germany . Japan began to occupy the islands in 1914 and, after World War I , the former German islands were entrusted by the League Of Nations to Japanese control. The island chain saw fighting between the US and Japanese forces in 1944 during World War II . The United States wanted to capture the islands for use as a bombing base to raid the Japanese mainland. Once captured, the islands of Saipan and Tinian were used extensively by the United States military as they finally put mainland Japan within round-trip range of American bombers. In fact, both the '' Enola Gay '' and the '' Bockscar '' (which dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , respectively) flew their missions from Tinian’s “North Field.” |