History of the Pacific Islands was the first European to sail through the islands and sighted Nui during his expedition in search of Terra Australis. European explorers did not return until two centuries later. In 1819 the island of Funafuti was named Ellice's Island; the name Ellice was applied to all nine islands after the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay (1812–1876). The islands came under Britain's sphere of influence in the late 19th century, when each of the Ellice Islands was declared a British protectorate by Captain Gibson R.N., of HMS "Curacoa", between 9 and 16 October 1892. The Ellice Islands were administered
Proposed top-level domain ICANN published a list of proposals for top-level domain strings it had received. The following ccTLDs (Country code top-level domains) have been requested using a procedure known as Internationalized domain name (or IDN) ccTLD Fast Track Process. It is possible that some requests have been withdrawn. The following countries have national languages which use other script than Latin, but have no internationalized country code top-level domain, and none proposed in the above list: These proposals are centered on creating an independent Internet identity for linguistic and cultural communities. They are mostly inspired by the success of the .cat domain created