The Marshall Islands , officially the Republic of the Marshall
Islands (RMI), is a Micronesian nation of islands in the middle
of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line
and just north of the Equator. This nation of roughly 60,000
persons is located north of Nauru and Kiribati, east of the
Federated States of Micronesia, and south of the U.S. territory
of Wake Island, to which it lays claim. Although the Marshall
Islands were settled by Micronesians in the 2nd millennium BC ,
little is known of their early history. Arrivals of the
Europeans explorer Alonso de Salazar was the first European to
see the islands in 1526, but they remained virtually unvisited
by Europeans until the arrival of British Captain John Marshall
in 1788. The islands were named after him. A German trading
company settled on the islands in 1885. They became part of the
protectorate of German New Guinea some years later. World War I
conquered the islands in World War I . The Japanese administered
them as a League of Nati