In the last three decades of the 20th century, Nauru had enormous per capita wealth from the phosphate mining, to the point they were some of the richest people on the planet.

[1] Nauruans subsisted on coconut and pandanus fruit, and engaged in aquaculture by catching juvenile ibija fish, acclimated them to freshwater conditions, and raised them in Buada Lagoon, providing an additional reliable source of food.

From around 1830, Nauruans had contact with Europeans from whaling ships and traders who replenished their supplies (such as fresh water) at Nauru.

[8] Accompanied by William Harris the German marines marched around the island and returned with the twelve chiefs, the white settlers and a Gilbertese missionary.

[8] The chiefs were kept under house arrest until the morning of 2 October, when the annexation ceremony began with the raising of the German flag.

At the time there were twelve tribes on Nauru: Deiboe, Eamwidamit, Eamwidara, Eamwit, Eamgum, Eano, Emeo, Eoraru, Irutsi, Iruwa, Iwi and Ranibok.

Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom signed the Nauru Island Agreement in 1919, creating a board known as the British Phosphate Commission (BPC).

In 1923, the League of Nations gave Australia a trustee mandate over Nauru, with the United Kingdom and New Zealand as co-trustees.

During World War II, Nauru was subject to significant damage from both Axis (German and Japanese) and Allied forces.

On the next day, Komet shelled Nauru's phosphate mining areas, oil storage depots, and the shiploading cantilever.

This surrender was accepted by Brigadier J. R. Stevenson, who represented Lieutenant General Vernon Sturdee, the commander of the First Australian Army, on board the warship HMAS Diamantina[21][19] Arrangements were made to repatriate from Chuuk the 745 Nauruans who survived Japanese captivity there.

[25] In July 1966 the Nauruan Head Chief spoke at the United Nations Trusteeship Council, calling for independence by 31 January 1968.

In June 1967 it was agreed that assets belonging to the British Phosphate Commission on the island would be sold to Nauru for 21 million Australian dollars.

In particular, Nauru made a legal complaint against Australia's failure to remedy the environmental damage caused by phosphate mining.

Nauru appealed to the International Court of Justice to compensate for the damage from almost a century of phosphate strip-mining by foreign companies.

[31] Declining phosphate prices, the high cost of maintaining an international airline, and the government's financial mismanagement combined to make the economy collapse in the late 1990s.

President Bernard Dowiyogo took office in April 2000 for his fourth and, after a minimal hiatus, fifth stints as Nauru's top executive.

In 2001, Nauru was brought to world attention by the Tampa affair, a Norwegian cargo ship at the centre of a diplomatic dispute between Australia, Norway and Indonesia.

The ship carried asylum seekers, hailing primarily from Afghanistan, who were rescued while attempting to reach Australia.

Shortly thereafter, the Nauruan government closed its borders to most international visitors, preventing outside observers from monitoring the refugees' condition.

[citation needed] In December 2003, several dozen of these refugees, in protest of the conditions of their detention on Nauru, began a hunger strike.

[33] The hunger strike was concluded in early January 2004 when an Australian medical team agreed to visit the island.

Under this deal, allegedly, Nauru would also establish an embassy in China and perform certain "safehouse" and courier services for the U.S. government, in a scheme codenamed "Operation Weasel".

[34] Nauru has yet to develop a plan to remove the innumerable coral pinnacles created by mining and make those lands suitable for human habitation.

[35][36] In August 2019 the parliament elected former human rights lawyer Lionel Aingimea as the new President of Nauru.