Gilbert and Ellice Islands around $250 million for revenue they had not received and for environmental destruction caused by phosphate mining practices similar to those on Nauru. The British authorities had relocated most of the population to Rabi Island, Fiji after 1945, but by the 1970s many were returning to Banaba. The British rejected the Banaban independence proposal, and the island remained under the jurisdiction of Kiribati. The Gilbert and Ellice Islands used their own postage stamps from 1911. Gilbert and Ellice Islands The Gilbert and Ellice Islands were a British protectorate from 1892 and colony from 1916 until 1 January 1976, when the
Marshall Islands at the 2016 Summer Olympics of their largest Olympic delegations, matching their size in 2008. The delegation, however, failed to win their first-ever Olympic medal. The Marshall Islands are a Micronesian island nation, located in the western Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia. As of 2016 the nation had a population of approximately 53,000. The islands were under Spain's influence until their annexation by Germany in 1885. Japan occupied the Islands during World War I and formally annexed them as part of its postwar South Pacific Mandate. The Marshall Islands were placed under United States control in 1944. The islands granted independence in 1986