Articles
In-depth stories from every period of Nauru’s history. Each article goes further than the era overviews, focusing on a single episode, theme or turning point.
Life on Old Nauru: Clans, Lagoons and Frigatebirds
How Nauruans fed, organised and entertained themselves on one of the most remote islands in the Pacific.
Pleasant Island: Beachcombers, Guns and the Ten Years’ War
How a century of contact with the outside world led to the darkest decade in Nauru’s early history.
Dorerin Naoero: The Story of the Nauruan Language
How a language spoken nowhere else became a written one, with the help of a printing press and a Nauruan scholar.
The Doorstop That Changed an Island
How a rock propping open an office door in Sydney set off a century of phosphate mining.
Angam: The Day Nauru Came Home
Twice the Nauruan people feared they might disappear. Twice they recovered — and every 26 October the nation celebrates.
Seventeen Days in Charge: Daniel Eberhardt
For seventeen days in January 1933, an accountant and customs official ran Nauru.
Exile to Chuuk: Nauru in the Second World War
Occupation, deportation and homecoming — the war that came close to destroying the Nauruan people.
The Road to 1968
How Hammer DeRoburt and a generation of Nauruans refused resettlement and won back their island.
Boom and Bust: The Rise and Fall of Phosphate Wealth
How phosphate made Nauru one of the richest countries on Earth — and how the fortune slipped away.
Nauru v Australia: The Phosphate Case at The Hague
How the world’s smallest republic took Australia to the International Court of Justice over a century of mining.
Small Island, Big Diplomacy
Three switches between Taiwan and China since 1980: how a tiny republic used its seat on the world stage.
Strength and Spirit: Nauru in Sport
A national football code borrowed from Melbourne, and a weightlifting record that would be the envy of far larger nations.
Higher Ground: Nauru’s Fight for Its Future
Rising seas, a ruined interior and a plan to move a nation uphill.