The kings were pretty apt to be at war with one another most of the time, but, about forty years before the American Revolution, there came a great soldier and leader, Kamehameha I. By the aid of European weapons and the counsel of foreign friends, he overcame his rivals and brought all the islands under his sway. The Hawaiian Islands were made known to the rest of the world when that plucky English sailor, Captain James Cook, was making his third and last great voyage of discovery, in which he had set out to find the famous and tragic northwest passage. On a roundabout way to Bering Strait, he called at the islands which seemed very attractive to him. Perhaps it is not quite right to say that he discovered them, for it seems very probable that the Spanish explorer Gaetano discovered them in 1555. [Illustration: General view of Volcano House, Kilauea, Hawaii] It was 1789 when Cook first visited the islands, and after he had continued his voyage through Bering Strait, and had failed to find the northwest passage, he turned about and sailed for the islands. While ashore with a part of his crew at a landing that is now the village of Kealakekua, one of the ship's boats was stolen by natives. Now Cook had learned to manage South Sea islanders in a very practical, though not the most tactful, way. When trouble occurred he used to send out a strong landing party, seize the king or chief and take him aboard the vessel--a proceeding which usually brought the natives to terms. But at this particular time the landing party was driven to the boats and Cook was killed. The group of islands was first named after Lord Sandwich, a patron and friend of Cook. At the time of Cook's discovery of the long-forgotten islands it was estimated that their population was not far from four hundred thousand. Missionaries went to the islands early in the nineteenth century and their reports brought many Americans and Europeans who settled there permanently. Then the chief business of the islands was the ordinary trade with the many whaling vessels that were in the Pacific. For a time the islands were under the protection of Great Britain; then they became an independent kingdom. When it was found that the lava fields made the best sugar-growing soil in the world, American capital came in millions of dollars to be invested in great plantations of sugar cane. Trouble between the queen and American business interests became so serious in time that the queen was dethroned and the Republic of Hawaii was established. The republic was short-lived, however; for when the Spanish-American war occurred, it was seen that Hawaii is the key to the Pacific Ocean. The Hawaiians, foreigners and natives, had long wished to become a part of the United States. So the islands were annexed and shortly became the Territory of Hawaii.