Vaitupu has maintained contacts with Tonga throughout its history, both peaceful (alliances through marriage) and hostile (visits by Tongan slave-seekers).

Te Aso Fiafia commemorates 25 November 1887 which was the date on which the final instalment of a debt of $13,000 was repaid to H. M. Ruge and Company, a German trading firm that operated from Apia, Samoa.

[10] Neemia, a Vaitupuan pastor living in Samoa, returned and organised working parties to collect coconuts and prepare copra to sell to pay off the debt, with Henry Nitz, the Webber & Co agent on Vaitupu, contributing money to meet the final payment.

However the schooner was lost during a voyage from Samoa and soon after Williams died, leaving no accounting for copra that had been shipped from Vaitupu.

[19] On 30 January and 1 February 1990, Cyclone Ofa had a major impact on Vaitupu, with around 85 percent of residential homes, trees and food crops being destroyed.

[20] Vaitupu received worldwide attention in 2000, when a fire in a dormitory at the Motufoua school killed 18 girls and a female adult supervisor.

[26] In the 2011 Tuvalu drought, Vaitupu experienced the loss of coconut palm trees, pulaka and taro due to the high temperatures and arid soil.

[27] In March 2015, storm surges resulting from Cyclone Pam caused damage to houses, crops and infrastructure.

[28][29][30][31] The island, which covers approximately 5.6 square kilometres (2 sq mi), includes swamps, mangroves, a fringing coral reef, and a large lagoon.

In 2010 what was then described as the largest diesel-solar photovoltaic (PV) hybrid electricity system in the South Pacific was installed at Motufoua Secondary School.

[33] In 2014 New Zealand and the European Union agreed to provide finance to the Government of Tuvalu to install battery-backed solar photovoltaic (PV) systems for the outer islands.

[34][35] From January to March 2015 Powersmart, a New Zealand company, implemented German solar power technology to build the new Vaitupu powerhouse.

[38] The community activities on Vaitupu include the Nafa Moa and Talo (Taro crops and chickens competition).

Members of each team compete for who can grow the heavier taro or larger chickens; the climax comes with the weigh-off between the competitors, concluding a day of good-natured rivalry and fun.

[2] Despite its relatively large size, Vaitupu became so overcrowded during the 1940s that a number of families migrated to Fiji to live on Kioa Island.

The two most famous Tuvaluans from the school were Tuvalu's first Governor General, Sir Fiatau Penitala Teo and its first Prime Minister, Toaripi Lauti.

Kennedy published Field Notes on the Culture of Vaitupu, Ellice Islands in the Journal of the Polynesian Society in instalments between 1929 and 1932 and as a book in 1931.

[2] The Reverend Sir Filoimea Telito (19 March 1945 – 11 July 2011) as a young man was a teacher at Motufoua Secondary School.