Exerpt from Travel With Kids Hawaii (DVD)

Born of fire, the Hawaiian Islands are volcanic creations. Each island formed from molten lava spewing from a crack in the earth's mantle. Layer upon layer of molten rock hardened, piling upon one another until the surface of the ocean was broken and an island was formed. The earth's plate moves the existing island to the Northeast and a new spot shifts over the heat vent. Lava spews and piles. A new island begins to form. The oldest island created over 25 million years ago, the newest island still being created to this day.

Once formed, the islands sat vacant...rocky forms covered with dirt and salt from the oceans around, desolate objects in a wide open sea...until by chance, a bird, the wind, the sea landed a seed on the island. The seed took root and over thousands of years a whole new ecosystem sprung to life creating the lush, proliferant islands known today.

Across the turbulent oceans these islands called, beckoning for inhabitants. As early as the 2nd - 8th centuried, man came.Using only the sun, the stars, the wind and the waves, explorers from South Pacific islands like Marquesas, Tahiti, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa and New Zealand sailed their outrigger canoes across thousands of miles of open ocean to establish a new mingling of Polyensian cultures ion these islands known as Hawaii.

For many centuries the islands were divided into small kingdoms ruled over by the Ali'i or Chiefs. Yet all was about to change. In 1790, Kamehemeha the Great of the Big Island set out to conquer and unite the other Hawaiian Islands. By 1810, all islands were loyal to King Kamehameha, beginning a monarchy.

In 1778, Captain James Cook was the first Western explorer to spot the islands, naming them the Sandwhich Islands after his British patron, the Earl of Sandwhich. The next year, he landed near Kona on the Big Island and was killed in an ensuing dispute.

In 1819, King Kamehameha I died and his son Prince Liholiho ascended to the throne. Decades later, in 1893, after Queen Lili'uokalani forceably surrenders her throne, Hawaii is annexed to the United States.