A region

Oceania

Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.

8 stories from this region.

The Coroner’s Report June 27, 2026 · Howland Island

The American Aviator Who Disappeared Over the Central Pacific on 2 July 1937 While Attempting the First Round-the-World Equatorial Flight

Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan disappeared on 2 July 1937 between Lae, Papua New Guinea, and Howland Island. The Lockheed Electra was on the final third of a planned round-the-world equatorial circumnavigation. The largest naval search in US history at that point covered approximately 250,000 square miles but found nothing. The fate of the aircraft and its two occupants remains formally unresolved.

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The Coroner’s Report June 27, 2026 · Cooper's Creek, Queensland

The Australian Expedition That Was the First to Cross the Continent South-to-North in 1861 and Whose Two Senior Leaders Both Died at the Depot Their Support Party Had Left Nine Hours Earlier

Robert O'Hara Burke and William Wills crossed the Australian continent from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria in February 1861. On the return they reached the Cooper's Creek depot on 21 April 1861 to find that the support party under William Brahe had departed nine hours earlier after waiting for them for four months. Both Burke and Wills died of starvation at the creek in late June 1861.

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The Coroner’s Report June 27, 2026 · Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii

The British Naval Officer Who Was Killed by Hawaiian Villagers on a Beach at Kealakekua Bay After a Stolen Cutter and a Misjudged Hostage Plan

Captain James Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay on Hawaii Island on 14 February 1779. He had returned to repair a broken mast, conflict had escalated after a ship's cutter was stolen, and his attempt to take the Hawaiian high chief Kalani'opu'u hostage in retaliation produced a beach fight in which he was struck on the head and stabbed multiple times. He was 50.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Vanikoro, Solomon Islands

The Two French Naval Frigates That Vanished in the South Pacific in 1788 and Were Not Located Until Anchor Recoveries on a Solomon Islands Reef in 1827

Jean-François de La Pérouse's two-ship Pacific expedition departed Brest in August 1785 with 220 men. Their last known position was Botany Bay in March 1788. The ships and crews disappeared in the southwest Pacific. The Irish merchant Peter Dillon located the wreckage on a reef off Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands in 1827 — thirty-nine years after the disappearance.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Commonwealth Bay, Antarctica

The Australian Geologist Who Walked 160 Kilometres Back to Base Alone in 1913 After His Two Companions Died and Most of His Skin Fell Off

Douglas Mawson and two companions were 480 km from base on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition when one fell into a crevasse on 14 December 1912 with the dogs and most of the supplies. The second died of probable hypervitaminosis A on 8 January 1913. Mawson walked back alone for thirty days. By the time he reached base on 8 February 1913, the soles of his feet had detached and he had eaten his remaining sled dogs.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

The Japanese Naval Air Attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on the Morning of Sunday 7 December 1941 That Killed 2,403 Americans and Brought the United States Into the Second World War

353 Imperial Japanese aircraft attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of Sunday 7 December 1941. The attack sank or damaged 19 American warships and killed 2,403 Americans. The United States declared war on Japan the next day. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States on 11 December. The Second World War became global.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · One Ton Depot, Ross Ice Shelf

The British Polar Party of Five Who Reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912 to Find Amundsen's Norwegian Flag Already There and Died in the Snow on the Return

Captain Robert Falcon Scott and four companions reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, thirty-three days after Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition had got there first. All five died of exhaustion, frostbite, and starvation on the return march. Scott's body and his journal were found by a search party eight months later, eleven miles from the One Ton Depot they had been trying to reach.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · Endurance wreck, Weddell Sea

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition That Never Reached Antarctica Because the Ship Was Crushed in the Ice and Whose Twenty-Eight Men All Survived

Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance was beset in the Weddell Sea pack ice on 19 January 1915 and was crushed and sank on 21 November 1915. The twenty-eight men reached uninhabited Elephant Island in April 1916; Shackleton then crossed 800 miles of the southern ocean in an open lifeboat to South Georgia. All twenty-eight survived. The wreck was located on the Weddell Sea floor in 2022.

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