It was established in 1795 when Kamehameha I, then Aliʻi nui of Hawaii, conquered the islands of Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lānaʻi, and unified them under one government.

An influx of European and American explorers, traders, and whalers soon began arriving to the kingdom, introducing diseases such as syphilis, tuberculosis, smallpox, and measles, leading to the rapid decline of the Native Hawaiian population.

In 1887, King Kalākaua was forced to accept a new constitution after a coup d'état by the Honolulu Rifles, a volunteer military unit recruited from American settlers.

She was subsequently overthrown in a 1893 coup engineered by the Committee of Safety, a group of Hawaiian subjects who were mostly of American descent, and supported by the U.S.

[12] The Committee of Safety dissolved the kingdom and established the Republic of Hawaii, intending for the U.S. to annex the islands, which it did on July 7, 1898, via the Newlands Resolution.

[16] These rulers were believed to come from a hereditary line descended from the first Polynesian, Papa, who became the earth mother goddess of the Hawaiian religion.

[18] Although successful in attacking both Oʻahu and Maui, he failed to annex Kauaʻi, hampered by a storm and a plague that decimated his army.

He enacted the Great Mahele of 1848, promulgated the first Constitution (1840) and its successor (1852) and witnessed cataclysmic losses of his people through imported diseases.

Upon Lunalilo's death, David Kalakaua defeated Kamehameha IV's widow, Queen Emma, in a contested election, beginning the second dynasty.

The document created a constitutional monarchy like that of the United Kingdom, stripping the King of most of his personal authority, empowering the legislature and establishing a cabinet government.

The Bayonet Constitution continued allowing the monarch to appoint cabinet ministers, but took his power to dismiss them without approval from the Legislature.

By rescinding the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875, the new tariff eliminated the previous advantage Hawaiian exporters enjoyed in trade to U.S. markets.

On January 24, 1895, while under house arrest Liliʻuokalani was forced to sign a five-page declaration as "Liliuokalani Dominis" in which she formally abdicated the throne in return for the release and commutation of the death sentences of her jailed supporters, including Minister Joseph Nāwahī, Prince Kawānanakoa, Robert William Wilcox and Prince Jonah Kūhiō.

Before ascending the throne, for fourteen years, or since the date of my proclamation as heir apparent, my official title had been simply Liliuokalani.

Following Kamehameha's death, succession was overseen by his principal wife, Kaʻahumanu, who was designated as regent over the new king, Liholiho, who was a minor.

[40] It instituted official property rights, formalizing the customary land tenure system in effect prior to this declaration.

The military shrank with the population under the onslaught of disease, so by the end of the Kamehameha dynasty the Hawaiian navy was severely reduced, having a few outdated ships and the army consisted of a few hundred troops.

After a French invasion that sacked Honolulu in 1849, Kamehameha III sought defense treaties with the United States and Britain.

On January 17, 1893, Liliʻuokalani, believing the U.S. military would intervene if she changed the constitution, waited for the USS Boston to leave port.

The kingdom proclaimed: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu returned and as reparation Kamehameha III donated land for a church.

Lord George Paulet of the Royal Navy warship HMS Carysfort, entered Honolulu Harbor and demanded that King Kamehameha III cede the islands to the British Crown.

Rear Admiral Richard Darton Thomas, Paulet's commanding officer, arrived at Honolulu harbor on July 26, 1843, on HMS Dublin from Valparaíso, Chile.

After a second warning, French troops overwhelmed the skeleton force and captured Honolulu Fort, spiked the coastal guns and destroyed all other weapons they found (mainly muskets and ammunition).

Timoteo Haʻalilio, William Richards and Sir George Simpson were commissioned as joint ministers plenipotentiary on April 8, 1842.

On April 1, 1843, Lord Aberdeen, on behalf of Queen Victoria, assured the Hawaiian delegation, "Her Majesty's Government was willing and had determined to recognize the independence of the Sandwich Islands under their present sovereign."

The "Anglo-Franco Proclamation", a joint declaration by France and Britain, signed by King Louis-Philippe and Queen Victoria, assured the Hawaiian delegation: Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and His Majesty the King of the French, taking into consideration the existence in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiian Islands) of a government capable of providing for the regularity of its relations with foreign nations, have thought it right to engage, reciprocally, to consider the Sandwich Islands as an Independent State, and never to take possession, neither directly or under the title of Protectorate, or under any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed.

The eligible princes and chiefs: Moses Kekūāiwa, Alexander Liholiho, Lot Kamehameha, Victoria Kamāmalu, Emma Rooke, William Lunalilo, David Kalākaua, Lydia Kamakaʻeha, Bernice Pauahi, Elizabeth Kekaʻaniau, Jane Loeau, Abigail Maheha, Peter Young Kaeo, James Kaliokalani, John Pitt Kīnaʻu and Mary Paʻaʻāina, officially declared by King Kamehameha III in 1844.

Kamehameha II assumed de facto control of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau when he kidnapped Kaumualiʻi, ending his vassal rule over the islands.

In 1822, Queen Kaʻahumanu and her husband King Kaumualiʻi traveled with Captain William Sumner to find Nīhoa, as her generation had only known of it through songs and myths.

In later years, the palace served as his sister's makeshift prison, the site of the official raising of the U.S. flag during annexation, and then territorial governor's and legislature's offices, ultimately becoming a museum.