[citation needed] Saipan, together with Tinian, was possibly first sighted by Europeans during the Spanish expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, when it made a landing in the southern Marianas on March 6, 1521.

[6] It is likely Saipan was sighted by Gonzalo Gómez de Espinosa in 1522 on board of Spanish ship Trinidad, which he commanded after the death of Ferdinand Magellan who died in the Battle of Mactan in Cebu, Philippines.

The first clear evidence of Europeans arriving to Saipan was by the Manila galleon Santa Margarita commanded by Juan Martínez de Guillistegui, that wrecked on the island in February 1600 and whose survivors stayed on it for two years, until 250 were rescued by the Santo Tomás and the Jesús María.

[citation needed] The Marianas archipelago was under the protectorate of the Spanish General Government of the Philippines; the Civil Guard and soldiers of the city of Macabebe in the Province of Pampanga frequently made port calls to the islands to ensure law and order.

Remaining native forest occurs in small, isolated fragments on steep slopes at low elevations and highland conservation areas of the island.

[30] The island used to have a large population of giant African land snails, introduced either deliberately as a food source, or accidentally by shipping, which became an agricultural pest.

[34] In 2017, an album called Music Of The Marianas: Made In Saipan Vol.1, featured 20 songs from a diverse collection of CNMI artists, released by 11th World Productions.

But in the 1980s, garment manufacturing became one of the main economic driving forces in Saipan when the U.S. government agreed that the CNMI would be exempted from certain federal minimum wage and immigration laws.

While one result of these changes was an increase in hotels and tourism, the main consequence was that dozens of garment factories opened and clothing manufacturing became the island's chief economic force, employing thousands of foreign contract laborers (mostly young Chinese women) at low wages.

[41] When the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) expired in 2005, thus eliminating quotas on textile exports to the United States, Saipan's garment factories started closing one after another.

Brands included Gap,[43] Levi Strauss,[44] Phillips-Van Heusen,[45] Abercrombie & Fitch,[46] L'Oreal subsidiary Ralph Lauren (Polo),[47] Lord & Taylor,[48] Tommy Hilfiger, and Walmart.

As of 2016, Imperial Pacific International Holdings, a Chinese company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (but majority owned by billionaire businesswoman Cui Lijie), which develops and operates casinos, hotels, and restaurants in CNMI, was reportedly the largest taxpayer in Saipan.

The Imperial Pacific Resort, still unfinished as of June 2019, is set to include a luxury hotel, casino, restaurants, retail space, and leisure facilities.

[53] Later lobbying efforts involved mailings from a Ralph Reed marketing company and bribery of Roger Stillwell, a Department of the Interior official who in 2006 pleaded guilty to accepting gifts from Abramoff.

There is something fundamentally wrong with an immigration system that allows the government of China to prohibit Chinese workers from exercising political or religious freedom while employed in the United States.

Something is fundamentally wrong with a CNMI immigration system that issues entry permits for 12- and 13-year-old girls from the Philippines and other Asian nations, and allows their employers to use them for live sex shows and prostitution.

Finally, something is fundamentally wrong when a Chinese construction worker asks if he can sell one of his kidneys for enough money to return to China and escape the deplorable working conditions in the Commonwealth and the immigration system that brought him there.

There is overwhelming evidence that abuse in the CNMI occurs on a grand scale and the problems are far from isolated.In 1991, Levi Strauss & Co. was embarrassed by a scandal involving six subsidiary factories run on Saipan by the Tan Holdings Corporation.

[citation needed] Cited for sub-minimal wages, seven-day work week schedules with twelve-hour shifts, poor living conditions and other indignities (including the alleged removal of passports and the virtual imprisonment of workers), Tan would eventually pay what was then the largest fines in U.S. labor history, distributing more than $9 million in restitution to some 1200 employees.

Levi Strauss claimed that it had no knowledge of the offenses, severed ties to the Tan family, and instituted labor reforms and inspection practices in its offshore facilities.

[56] In 2005–2006, the issue of immigration and labor practices on Saipan was brought up during the American political scandals of Congressman Tom DeLay and lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who visited the island on numerous occasions.

[58] On July 19, 2007,[59] Deputy Assistant Secretary of Insular Affairs David B. Cohen testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources Regarding S. 1634 (The Northern Mariana Islands Covenant Implementation Act).

Secretary Kempthorne met personally with a young lady from China who was the victim of such a scam and who was pressured to become a prostitute; she was able to report her situation and obtain help in the Federal Ombudsman's office.

A woman was recently sentenced to five years in prison for attempting to smuggle over 30 Chinese nationals from the CNMI into Guam.A movement to federalize labor and immigration in the Northern Marianas Islands began in early 2007.

Despite a strong lobby effort by Governor Fitial to stop it, President Bush signed PL 110-229 into law on May 8, 2008, and the U.S. immigration takeover began November 28, 2009.

The 1960 movie Hell to Eternity tells the true-life story of GI Guy Gabaldon's role in convincing 800 Japanese soldiers to surrender during the WWII Battle of Saipan.

A significant part of the novel Amrita by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto takes place in Saipan with regular references to the landscape and spirituality of the island.

The book weaves together a mysterious tale of historical fiction with reference to Saipan's multi-ethnic past, from Japanese colonization to American WWII victory and the post-Cold War evolution of the island.

In 2016, a horror film directed by Hiroshi Katagiri was released on Netflix titled Gehenna: Where Death Lives in which American developers encounter a supernatural entity in a World War 2 hidden bunker while searching for land to build their resort.

[80] In 2024, Julian Assange visited briefly to plead guilty in the federal courthouse of the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, located in Saipan, to conspiracy to obtain and disclose US national defense information.