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Duke Kahanamoku, on one sheet

Free, printable, and sourced. No login, no email address, no watermark. Print this page and it becomes the handout; everything on it is backed by the sources list, and the things nobody has settled are marked as unsettled, because that is how history actually works.

The facts

Born
24 August 1890, Honolulu, in what was then the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi
Died
22 January 1968, Honolulu, aged 77
His name
Duke was a given name, inherited from his father, who was christened for the 1869 visit of the Duke of Edinburgh. It was never a title.
Olympic medals
Five: three gold and two silver, at the Games of 1912, 1920 and 1924. Not six, and not four Games.
The 1911 swim
100 yards in 55.4 seconds at Honolulu Harbour, 4.6 seconds under the world record. The mainland authority refused to believe it.
The 1925 rescue
Eight men brought out of the surf off Newport Beach, California, on his surfboard, on 14 June 1925.
Surfing
He did not invent it. Heʻe nalu is Hawaiian and centuries older than him. He carried it out to the world.
Office
Sheriff of the City and County of Honolulu for thirteen consecutive terms, until 1961.

Say the names right

Kahanamoku
ka‑HA‑na‑MO‑ku. Every vowel is sounded.
Hawaiʻi
ha‑VAI‑ee. The ʻokina before the last i is a consonant, a catch in the throat, not an apostrophe.
Waikīkī
wai‑kee‑KEE. The line over a vowel, the kahakō, means you hold it.
heʻe nalu
heh‑eh NA‑lu. Wave sliding: surfing.

Five questions worth discussing

Each comes from something documented on this site, linked so students can read the fuller account before arguing about it.

  1. In 1911 the swimming authorities in New York refused to accept Duke's world record, saying the timekeepers must have made a mistake. He was a Native Hawaiian in a distant territory. What made them so sure? What would it take to be believed?
  2. The Outrigger Canoe Club, on the beach where Duke grew up, would not have him as a member. He and his friends founded their own club, Hui Nalu, instead. Was starting a better club a victory, a workaround, or both?
  3. Duke was barred from earning money from swimming while he was the fastest swimmer alive, and worked at a petrol station between Olympic golds. After his death his name was sold, resold, and litigated over by people outside his family. Who should own a famous person's name?
  4. Three famous sayings are attributed to Duke on posters and websites, but nobody can point to where he said them, so this site refuses to print them. When is it right to leave a good quotation out?
  5. The statue of Duke at Kūhiō Beach stands with its back to the ocean, and people argued about that from the day it was unveiled. Which way should it face, and who should have decided?

For the bibliography

Aloha To You. “Duke Kahanamoku, on one sheet.” alohatoyou.com/learn/. Updated 24 August 2026. The full source list is at alohatoyou.com/duke/sources/, and a printable timeline at alohatoyou.com/duke/timeline/.

Teachers: everything here may be copied, printed and handed out freely. If something on this sheet is wrong, the site corrects itself in public, so telling us fixes it for the next class too.