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56 years ago today, Hawaii became the 50th state to join the United States. On August 21, 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the proclamation welcoming Hawaii into the United States.
The Admission Act, formally An Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union (Pub. L. 86–3, 73 Stat. 4, enacted March 18, 1959) is a statute enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower which dissolved the Territory of Hawaii and established the State of Hawaii as the 50th state to be admitted into the Union. [1]
The following table is a list of all 50 states and their respective dates of statehood. The first 13 became states in July 1776 upon agreeing to the United States Declaration of Independence, and each joined the first Union of states between 1777 and 1781, upon ratifying the Articles of Confederation, its first constitution. [6]
Hawaii is the southernmost U.S. state and the second westernmost after Alaska. Like Alaska, Hawaii borders no other U.S. state. It is the only U.S. state not in North America, and the only one completely surrounded by water and entirely an archipelago. In addition to the eight main islands, the state has many smaller islands and islets.
Though many Americans think of a vacation in a tropical paradise when imagining Hawaii, how the 50th state came to be a part of the U.S. is actually a much darker story, generations in the making.
Hawaii residents overwhelmingly voted in favor of statehood in 1959. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Hawaii Admission Act on March 18, 1959, which created the means for Hawaiian statehood. After a referendum in which over 93% of Hawaiian citizens voted in favor of statehood, Hawaii was admitted as the 50th state on August 21, 1959.
Hawaii is, of course, in the Pacific, and unlike California, Colorado or Alaska, the 50th state is not part of the continental US that reaches the North Atlantic Ocean on its eastern shores.
Statehood Day or Admission Day is a legal holiday in the state of Hawaii in the United States. It is celebrated annually on the third Friday in August to commemorate the anniversary of the state's 1959 admission to the Union. It was first celebrated in 1969. [1]