The Chatham Islands east of New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji and Kiribati all promoted themselves as first to welcome the new millineum back on January first, 2000. According to Aimee Harris, writing in Honolulu magazine in 1999 via Steve Trussel,
"The National Geographic Society recognizes the Catham Islands east of New Zealand as the first inhabited place to see each sunrise. But, the Tongan government has considered implementing daylight-saving time to beat the Catham Islands to the millennium. However, Tonga pulled out and remains one hour behind the finish line. Fiji, on the other hand, claims to be the leader of the Pacific pack since it straddles the 180th meridian, which was designated as the halfway point around the globe in 1884."
But wait: Here comes Kiribati. Kiribati (pronounce this "Kir-a-bas"), whose thirty three specks of land spread across 2000 miles of the Pacific, already had a problem. Stretching across the International Date Line, opposite sides of Kiribati labored under a 23 hour time difference. It would be theoretically possible to pass your driving exam, then get a traffic ticket on the other end of the archipelago - the day before you got your driver's license.
So in honor of the approaching millennium, and to ease the work of government and business, "Kiribati 'bent' the international date line to include its easternmost land mass, Caroline Island, which, not coincidentally, (was) renamed Millennium Island," and thus became the first to welcome the year 2000.
If you're thinking of visiting Kiribati, act soon. Yesterday, to observe World Environment Day, President Anote Tong noted that his country is, literally, disappearing. From Monsters and Critics,
"He said some people had already been relocated
in his country of one high island and 32 low-lying atolls spread across
4,000 kilometres of the Pacific, because of rising sea levels and
coastal erosion."
and
"Tong said earlier that he has to find new homes
for his 100,000 people because global warming could make the country,
where the average height above sea level is two metres, disappear under
the sea this century."
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