Ascension Island was garrisoned by the British Admiralty from 22 October 1815 to 1922 and was an important refueling stop for ships and commercial airliners in the days of international air travel by flying boats.

[14] First, the Catholic Church has long celebrated the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary on the fixed date of 8 December, yet by then the third armada had already reached India.

[15] Two sources, a letter from King Manuel I of Portugal[16] and Gaspar Corrêa’s chronicle,[17] made no mention of either Ascension or Conception, instead describing a visit to Brazil.

[20] The supposed sighting of Ascension originates from the account by a passenger of the fifth Portuguese armada, Giovanni da Empoli who stated that when the ships reached Cape Verde it was decided to “[..] sail out into the open sea to a distance of 750 or 800 leagues.

[24] It is possible, but disputed, that the island was sometimes used[25] as an open prison for criminal mariners, although there is only one documented case of such an exile, a Dutch ship's officer, Leendert Hasenbosch, set ashore at Clarence Bay as a punishment for sodomy in May 1725.

He noted the care taken to sustain "houses, gardens & fields placed near the summit of the central mountain," and cisterns at roadsides to provide drinking water.

In commenting on this, he noted René Primevère Lesson's remark "that the English nation alone would have thought of making the island of Ascension a productive spot; any other people would have held it as a mere fortress in the ocean.

Four years later, Hooker, with much encouragement from Darwin, advised the Royal Navy that with the help of Kew Gardens, they should institute a long-term plan of shipping trees to Ascension.

By the late 1870s Norfolk pines, eucalyptus, bamboo, and banana trees grew in profusion at the highest point of the island, Green Mountain, creating a tropical cloud forest.

[39][40] In 1922, letters patent made Ascension a dependency of Saint Helena, with control being officially handed over to the Eastern Telegraph Company from the Admiralty on 20 October 1922.

[46] The MILS hydrophones that were located in the SOFAR channel for broad area coverage have played a significant role in long range acoustic transmission studies and incidents.

After strengthening and improving the structure, the Royal Air Force deployed a fleet of Avro Vulcan bombers and Handley Page Victor tankers at the airfield.

[55] In 2008, British diplomats at the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UN CLCS), requested sovereignty over 200,000 km2 (77,220 sq mi) of submarine territory around the island.

[59] NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory operate a Meter-Class Autonomous Telescope (MCAT) on Ascension as part of the deep space surveillance system for tracking orbital debris, which can be a hazard to spacecraft and astronauts.

The airfield was cobbled together over numerous efforts beginning in World War 2, including multiple extensions, the addition of turning blisters and fast exit taxi-ways, and mill and overlay repairs.

The runway itself is an engineered base composed of granite which was imported from Nova Scotia, Canada and sand from Georgia, United States, under strict fumigation and inspection control of the on-island conservation group.

In 2023, the United Kingdom government announced that it was considering a proposal to send migrants arriving in the UK by boat to Ascension Island, should the Supreme Court rule that the Rwanda asylum plan is illegal.

Flanking one side is a large stand of tall Norfolk pine, trees planted by British mariners, which were to have been used as replacement masts for sailing ships.

Prosopis juliflora, a type of mesquite known as "Mexican thorn", was introduced by BBC engineers to bind the dry top soil when they arrived in 1966 to construct a shortwave relay station.

[77] Ascension Island, including fourteen inshore stacks and marine habitat extending out for 3 nautical miles (5.6 km; 3.5 mi) from the coastline, has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International as a breeding site for seabirds.

[84] A memorandum sent by a group of Ascension Island residents suggests that the handling of economic development, taxation and representation led to the dispute and that all six councillors resigned (five of them at once).

The Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Constitution Order 2009 was made by Queen Elizabeth II and the Privy Council on 8 July and came into operation in September 2009.

Therefore, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha should be treated with equality as British Overseas Territories in their own right and the FCO should change their status to this effect.

However, this change should not necessarily imply that the practice of St Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha sharing the same Governor should come to an end.

[100] The main economic activity on the island is centred on the military bases at Wideawake Airfield, and the BBC World Service's Atlantic Relay station.

In December 2002, this was replaced by an on-shore Petroleum Supply Depot under military management, with fuel still being delivered by a chartered tanker, Maersk Rapier, which operates on an MOD resupply contract for both Ascension and the Falkland Islands every two months.

Limited air travel has, however, been made available in recent years to the public by the RAF, and the Georgetown Obsidian Hotel and a number of guest cottages have been opened.

[102][103] Ascension Island Government does not issue visas to citizens of the following countries and territories: Belarus, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iran, Libya, Macau, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

An Airbus A330 aircraft operated by AirTanker Services on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom) carried out those flights, called the South Atlantic Air Bridge, although a limited number of commercial passenger tickets were available.

During the temporary suspension, Ascension along with its sister island of St Helena, had been intermittently supplied by a Titan operated charter service originating in the UK.