Almost everyone in Russia and the United States is familiar with the story of how Alaska was sold to the Americans for next to nothing. Considerably fewer people have heard about the Russian colony in California. And only historians seem to know that mere chance prevented the future 50th state of the US from becoming a part of the Russian Empire 205 years ago.
The 'Schaffer scam', as those events are known in American historiography, was a fleeting episode of the colonial era. But that doesn’t make the story any less exciting.
What truly happened on the Sandwich Islands between 1815 and 1817, why did a Bavarian doctor christen native chiefs in memory of Russian heroes of the Napoleonic War, and when were the last human sacrifices in Hawaii?
The ‘soft-shell crab’ as a great conqueror
The first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii had a difficult childhood. He was born in the middle of the 18th century to a noble family on the archipelago’s largest island. The clans of the tri...
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