Word: kalakaua
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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When King Kalakaua-the "Merry Monarch,'' elected by the legislature two years after the end of the Kamehameha dynasty-ratified a reciprocal trade treaty with the U.S. in 1875, Hawaii boomed in earnest. But then, embroiled with a corrupt legislature and a Svengali-like adventurer, Kalakaua lost his grip; scandals raged as the spendthrift King kicked the public debt from $388,000 to $2,600,000 until, in 1887, he was forced to sign a new constitution stripping himself of his near-totalitarian powers...
Hawaii's last monarch was Queen Liliuokalani, the buxom, strong-willed sister of Kalakaua, and, like her brother, a cultivated personage (poet, musician, composer of the famed Aloha Oe). Tough-minded Liliuokalani tried to overthrow the constitution as Hawaii plummeted into the depression that followed President McKinley's punishing tariff law on sugar. Around the rugged Queen grew secret societies such as the Annexation Club, and finally, in 1893, a Committee of Safety took possession of the government office building, formed a republic, applied to the U.S. for annexation. Five years later, to the sound...