Nauru - Historical Timeline - Orbitrock

2025 - Priorities center on: securing sustainable post-phosphate revenues (fees/services, seabed-mining regime if/when adopted, regional compacts), land rehabilitation and coastal protection on an atoll with >70% mined-out interior, utility reliability (power, water, waste), and calibrated migration arrangements linked to the RPC. Governance focus includes debt discipline, state-enterprise performance, and translating new diplomatic ties into resilient, transparent development gains.

2024 - Nauru switches diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People's Republic of China; economic cooperation talks and infrastructure prospects expand, while debates persist over autonomy and partnership terms. Seabed-mining rules remain under negotiation at the ISA; Nauru advocates timely completion.

2023 - David Adeang becomes President after a parliamentary no-confidence move; the government focuses on fiscal stability, utilities reliability, and external compacts.

2022 - Russ Kun elected President; administrative reforms and external-relations balancing continue.

2022 - COVID-19 border controls keep the virus out until a controlled reopening; vaccination coverage becomes among the world's highest; limited outbreaks managed.

2021 - Nauru (sponsoring NORI, a subsidiary of The Metals Company) invokes the ISA "two-year rule" to finalize deep-sea mining regulations for polymetallic nodules, elevating Nauru in global seabed governance debates.

2016 - Political stability under Baron Waqa; infrastructure upgrades (power, port, housing) proceed, largely aid-financed; human-rights concerns around the RPC draw global scrutiny.

2011 - RPC closes (briefly) then reopens amid renewed Australian policy; numbers surge, then decline from late-2010s as transfers/resettlements proceed.

2005 - Diplomatic switch to Taiwan (after a 2002–2005 period of PRC ties); aid and recognition diplomacy become recurring.

2003 - President Bernard Dowiyogo dies in office; rapid no-confidence cycles and short presidencies follow.

2001 - Australia launches the "Pacific Solution"; the Nauru Regional Processing Centre (RPC) opens for asylum seekers intercepted at sea, becoming a major revenue stream.

1995 - As phosphate declines, the state experiments with offshore banking/registries; international pressure over money-laundering leads to reforms and closures by the early 2000s.

1993 - Case settled; Australia agrees to compensation and cooperation on restoration.

1989 - Nauru files ICJ proceedings against Australia over mined-out land rehabilitation; Case settled; Australia agrees to compensation and cooperation on restoration.

1980 - Phosphate boom finances universal services, overseas real estate, and air links; warnings mount about reserve depletion and land devastation.

1970 - The Nauru Phosphate Corporation (NPC) takes over mining; the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust builds a sovereign investment portfolio.

1968 - Independence; Hammer DeRoburt becomes the first President.

1965 - Nauruan leaders press for control of phosphate wealth and land rehabilitation; a settlement with Australia and the BPC is negotiated.

1947 - Nauru becomes a UN Trust Territory under Australia (with the UK/NZ as co-trustees).

1946 - Survivors are repatriated in 1946.

1943 - Japanese occupation; air raids and forced labor; 1943: hundreds of Nauruans are deported to Truk (Chuuk); many perish. Survivors are repatriated in 1946.

1920 - The League of Nations grants a Class C mandate to Australia, Britain, and New Zealand; the British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC) control mining for Allied benefit.

1914 - Australian forces occupy Nauru in World War I.

1903 - Phosphate of lime is identified and commercially developed; mining begins under German rule, soon dominated by the Pacific Phosphate Company.

1888 - Germany annexes Nauru, folding it into the Marshall Islands administration; missionaries arrive; copra trade expands.

1883 - A destructive inter-tribal war erupts; outside traders supply firearms.

1798 - British captain John Fearn sights the island and dubs it "Pleasant Island." Sporadic whalers and traders follow.

500 - Micronesian and Polynesian voyagers settle Nauru; 12 traditional districts form under clan chiefs. Fishing, toddy, and lagoon cultivation anchor a self-sufficient atoll society.