Hello friends, welcome. As always, I'm so happy you're joining me and I've got some great stuff to share with you today.

We've been talking quite a bit about the various territories of the United States. How do they get to be a territory?

And today I want to talk to you about the Northern Mariana Islands, but there's more to this story than just how did the United States acquire it.

So let's dive in. I'm Sharon Nickman and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast.

Okay, first of all, a lot of people when I say Northern Mariana Islands, do you know any of those kidney name, any of them?

Most people are like, no.

And that's okay. We don't talk about them very often, but after today's episode, you're going to know more.

So Guam, which we've talked about previously, is actually part of the archipelago of islands that make up the Northern Mariana's, but Guam is distinct.

It is politically separate than the rest of the Northern Mariana Island chain.

And that is largely related to some of the history we're about to talk about.

So the Northern Mariana Islands are actually a submerged mountain range.

And that's submerged mountain range extends about 1500 miles from Guam to near Japan in the Pacific Ocean.

And geographically, the Mariana's are part of a larger region called Micronesia. And they have a total land area of about 389 square miles.

There are three main islands that are inhabited in a large number of smaller islands that are largely uninhabited.

So the three main islands we're going to be discussing today are Cipan, Tinian and Rotar.

And again, Guam also part of the chain, but politically separate from Cipan, Tinian and Rotar and the other uninhabited islands.

So these islands are very well known for their beautiful beaches. They're heavily heavily forested.

In the case of Cipan, about 80% of the island is covered in forest.

The scuba diving is amazing. And the history is old. Archaeological studies of human activity on these islands has revealed things like pottery that go back to about 1500 BC.

The first known inhabitants of the northern Mariana's came from the Philippines at Indonesia more than 4,000 years ago. And these became known as the Chimaro, the Chimaro people.

And they had very cool homes that were built on giant pillars of stones.

And of course, as one can imagine, once European explorers like Ferdinand Magellan began making contact with these islands in the 1500s,

...