HIHawaii Famous People

One state has produced both a reigning monarch and a president of the United States. Queen Liliuokalani was deposed at Iolani Palace in January 1893. Sixty eight years later, in the same city, Barack Obama was born. The list of famous people from Hawaii runs through a kingdom, a sugar plantation economy, an all Japanese American infantry regiment and a surf break at Waikiki, which is why so few of the names on it resemble anyone else's.

Barack Obama, the only president born in the islands

Obama was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961, less than two years after Hawaii became a state, and served as president from 2009 to 2017. He spent part of his childhood in Jakarta, returned to his grandparents' Makiki apartment and graduated from Punahou School in 1979, where he came off the bench for a state championship basketball team. He remains the only president born outside the continental United States, and Hawaii's only one. No vice president has come from the state either.

The royal line: Kamehameha, Kalakaua, Liliuokalani

Kamehameha I was born on Hawaii Island around 1758 and spent decades bringing the archipelago under a single ruler, driving the defenders of Oahu over the cliffs at Nuuanu in 1795 and completing the unification by 1810. June 11 is still a state holiday in his name.

King Kalakaua, who reigned from 1874 to 1891, wrote the words to Hawaii Ponoi and in 1881 became the first head of state anywhere to travel around the world. His sister Liliuokalani, born in Honolulu on September 2, 1838, took the throne in 1891 and lost it two years later to a committee of American businessmen backed by US Marines. She composed roughly 150 songs, including Aloha Oe, and wrote much of her memoir during the eight months she spent confined to a palace bedroom in 1895.

Duke Kahanamoku and the athletes

Duke Kahanamoku, born in Honolulu on August 24, 1890, won the 100 metre freestyle at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics and again at Antwerp in 1920, then took silver behind Johnny Weissmuller in Paris in 1924. Between meets he gave surfing demonstrations in Australia and southern California that carried the sport off the islands entirely. He served as sheriff of Honolulu for thirteen consecutive terms.

Michelle Wie West, born in Honolulu in 1989, won the US Women's Open in 2014. Marcus Mariota of Saint Louis School became the first Hawaii born player to win the Heisman Trophy, in 2014. Shane Victorino of Wailuku won World Series rings in 2008 and 2013. Bethany Hamilton of Kauai lost her left arm to a tiger shark off Tunnels Beach in October 2003 and was competing again within months.

Daniel Inouye, Patsy Mink and the 442nd

Daniel Inouye was a seventeen year old first aid volunteer in Honolulu on December 7, 1941. He later enlisted in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and lost his right arm assaulting machine gun positions in Italy in April 1945. His Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor in 2000. He became Hawaii's first member of the US House in 1959 and served in the Senate from 1963 until his death in 2012, ending his career as president pro tempore and third in the presidential line of succession.

Patsy Takemoto Mink, born in Paia on Maui in 1927, was rejected by every medical school she applied to and went to law school instead. Elected to Congress in 1964, she was the first woman of colour to serve there, and she was a principal author of Title IX. Congress renamed the law for her in 2002. Hiram Fong, one of eleven children of plantation labourers, became the first Asian American in the US Senate in 1959. Ellison Onizuka of Kealakekua was the first Asian American to fly in space, in January 1985, and died aboard Challenger a year later.

Musicians, actors and unexpected island connections

Israel Kamakawiwoole recorded his ukulele medley of Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World in a single early morning studio session in 1988, and when he died in 1997 he lay in state at the Hawaii State Capitol. Don Ho, raised in Kaneohe, turned a Waikiki lounge act into a national television career on the strength of Tiny Bubbles in 1966. Bruno Mars was born Peter Gene Hernandez in Honolulu in 1985 into a family revue and worked as a child Elvis impersonator before he was five. Jack Johnson learned to surf the North Shore of Oahu and recorded his first album after a wave ended his professional plans.

Bette Midler was born in Honolulu in 1945 and named after Bette Davis. Nicole Kidman was born there in 1967 while her father was doing graduate research and moved to Australia at four. Jason Momoa, born in Honolulu in 1979, was raised by his mother in Norwalk, Iowa. Steve Case, a Punahou graduate from the generation just ahead of Obama's, co-founded America Online in 1985. And Sun Yat-sen arrived at thirteen to join his brother, graduated from Iolani School in 1882, briefly attended the school now called Punahou, and founded his first revolutionary society in the city in 1894.

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