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1777
- Kiritimati Atoll was sighted on Christmas Eve in 1777 by the English
www.britannica.com › place › Kiritimati-AtollKiritimati Atoll | Location, Map, Island, & History | Britannica
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What is Kiritimati (Ki-Ris-i-Mas)?
Kiritimati Atoll was sighted on Christmas Eve in 1777 by the English navigator Captain James Cook. (Kiritimati is the Gilbertese spelling of Christmas.) Although claimed by the United States under the Guano Act of 1856, the atoll was incorporated into the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony by Great Britain in 1919.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
UTC+14:00. Kiritimati (pronounced [kiˈrɪsmæs], also known as Christmas Island) is a Pacific Ocean atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The name is derived from the English word "Christmas" written in Gilbertese according to its phonology, in which the combination ti is pronounced s .
- 388.39 km² (149.96 sq mi)
- 7,380 (2020 census)
- 13 m (43 ft)
- North Pacific Ocean
- Becky Alexis-Martin
- Atomic atolls. Teeua Tetua was just three when she was blindfolded with a rough cloth by her mother. They then braced themselves for the Grapple Y explosion.
- Island life disrupted. I went on to speak to a further 14 Kiritimati islanders to learn about their lives and experiences of nuclear weapon testing. All of the islanders that I spoke to who recalled the tests also remember being frightened and uncomfortable.
- Military life. Many of the British servicemen who worked on the operation – and their families – were also left scarred for life, in some way, by their experience on the island.
- Understanding exposure. The general public first became aware of the health effects of ionising radiation after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, which killed 225,000 people.
Formerly called Christmas Island, Kiritimati is the largest island in the new country of Kiribati, established in 1979. It was named by Captain James Cook, the first westerner to discover this atoll, one of the largest in the world.
History. Kiritimati has a long and fascinating history. It was first discovered by the Spanish explorer Alvaro de Mendana in 1568, who named it “Isla de los Reyes Magos” (Island of the Three Kings). The name was later changed to “Christmas Island” by British explorer Captain James Cook in 1777.
Nov 9, 2022 · The Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean is today better known as Kiritimati, and is part of the nation of Kiribati. It was documented by Captain James Cook on Christmas Eve in 1777. It was on this Christmas Island that Britain carried out a series of nuclear tests in the 1950s.
In 2018, a group of veterans revisited Kiritimati Atoll to commemorate their participation in the Grapple Y H-bomb tests that were undertaken exactly sixty years ago. The British atomic veterans met Kiritimati Islanders and gave gifts to the community.
