1890 to 2002

The events

1. 24 August 1890

   Born in Honolulu, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Father Duke Halapu Kahanamoku, a police officer; mother Julia Paʻakonia Lonokahikina Paoa. Eldest of nine.

2. 17 January 1893

   The Hawaiian Kingdom is overthrown by an armed group backed by United States Marines. The same year, the family moves to Kālia, Waikīkī.

3. 1898

   The islands are annexed by joint resolution of the United States Congress, over a petition signed by a large majority of the Native Hawaiian population.

4. 1908

   The Outrigger Canoe Club is founded on Waikīkī beach and will not admit Hawaiians. Duke and his friends found Hui Nalu, the club of the waves, in answer.

   Disputed. Sources give both 1908 and 1911 for Hui Nalu’s founding.

5. 11 August 1911

   Honolulu Harbour: a hundred yards freestyle in 55.4 seconds, 4.6 under the world record. The Amateur Athletic Union refuses to ratify the time.

6. 10 July 1912

   Stockholm. Gold in the 100 metres freestyle, after Cecil Healy of Australia argues the Americans back into a semifinal they had missed. Silver in the relay.

7. 24 December 1914

   Freshwater Beach, Sydney. Having brought no board, he shapes one from timber bought locally and demonstrates surfing to a crowd that has not seen it. A second demonstration follows on 10 January 1915. Australian surfing dates itself from that summer.

8. 1918

   Barred by amateur rules from earning anything from swimming, he gives exhibition swims in thirty mainland American cities for the war effort.

9. 24 August 1920

   Antwerp, his thirtieth birthday: gold in the 100 metres freestyle in 1:00.4, the first man under sixty-one seconds. The final is protested and re-swum five days later; he wins again. Gold in the relay.

10. 1921 to 1928

    The Ala Wai Canal is dug. The wetlands of Waikīkī, including the landscape of his childhood at Kālia, are drained and filled.

11. 1924

    Paris, aged thirty-three. Silver in the 100 metres freestyle, behind Johnny Weissmuller. His brother Samuel takes the bronze.

12. 14 June 1925

    The fishing boat Thelma capsizes off Newport Beach, California, with seventeen aboard. Using his board, he brings in eight men. Five drown.

13. 1925 to 1955

    About fourteen Hollywood credits across thirty years, and not one lead. He plays a Pacific islander, an Indian chief, a pirate captain, a guard.

14. November 1934

    Elected Sheriff of the City and County of Honolulu, the first of thirteen consecutive terms.

    Disputed. Some references say 1932. Thirteen two-year terms ending in 1961 back-date to 1935, elected late 1934; we follow the arithmetic and would like the state archives to settle it.

15. 2 August 1940

    Marries Nadine Alexander, a dance instructor who had come from Cleveland to teach at the Royal Hawaiian. He is three weeks short of fifty; she is thirty-five.

16. 1946

    The Supreme Court decides Duncan v. Kahanamoku: trying a civilian before a military tribunal in wartime Hawaiʻi was unlawful. He is the named defendant because he made the arrest.

17. 1961

    The sheriff’s office is abolished in the reorganisation that follows statehood. He is made the state’s Ambassador of Aloha, a title without a salary.

    Disputed. Sources give both 1960 and 1961 for the appointment.

18. 1965 and 1966

    Inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, then the Surfing Hall of Fame: the first person in both.

19. 22 January 1968

    Dies in Honolulu of a heart attack, aged seventy-seven. His ashes go into the water off the beach he grew up on.

20. 24 August 1990

    On what would have been his hundredth birthday, Jan Gordon Fisher’s nine-foot bronze is dedicated at Kūhiō Beach. It stands with its back to the ocean, which was criticised at the time.

21. 24 August 2002

    The United States Postal Service issues a commemorative stamp on his birthday.