Chuuk State: History
=== Indigenous settlement ===
Chuuk was first settled by Austronesians, believed to be from the Lapita culture of Island Melanesia. Archaeological evidence indicates that islands of Feefen and Wééné Islands had human settlements in the second and first century BCE. Later evidence indicates that widespread human settlements appeared in Chuuk during the 14th century CE, as the Chuukese culture was formed.
The first sighting recorded by Europeans was made by the Spanish navigator Alvaro de Saavedra on board the Florida during August or September 1528. They were later visited by the Spaniard Alonso de Arellano on 15 January 1565 on board the galleon patache San Lucas.
As part of the Caroline Islands, Truk was claimed by the Spanish Empire, which struggled to control the islands in the late 19th century. The Chuuk Lagoon was then inhabited by Chuukese people (an Austronesian group) that participated in intermittent wars, as well as a small population of foreign merchants and missionaries, mostly linked to the Catholic Church. Spanish control over the islands was in part nominal. The Spanish stopped to raise a flag over Chuuk in 1886, and returned in 1895 as part of an attempt to assert control and negotiate peace between the tribes of Chuuk. No major Spanish settlement was established and traditional life continued until the German colonial era.
The Caroline Islands were sold to the German Empire in 1899, after Spain withdrew from the Pacific after the Spanish–American War in which it lost its main colony in Asia, the Philippines. Germany incorporated the territory into its domain in the German New Guinea.
During World War I, the Imperial Japanese Navy was tasked with pursuing and destroying the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy and protecting the shipping lanes of Allied trade in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. During the course of this operation, the Japanese navy seized German possessions in the Mariana Islands, the Carolinas, the Marshall Islands and Palau groups by October 1914. Chuuk then became a possession of the Empire of Japan under the South Seas Mandate of the League of Nations after the defeat of Germany in World War I.
Chuuk was one of six districts of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) which were administered by the United States under charter from the United Nations from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1980s. The termination of U.S. administration of the Chuuk, Yap, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Mariana Islands districts of the TTPI occurred on 3 November 1986.
The Federated States of Micronesia, including Chuuk, Yap, Kosrae, and Pohnpei, was established in 1979 and signed a Compact of Free Association with the U.S. (effective 3 November 1986).
As of recent times, Chuuk has been pushing harder for independence. An independence referendum was originally scheduled to coincide with federal elections on 3 March 2015, but was pushed back to 5 March 2019. The independence referendum was further pushed back to March 2022, with a date to be announced, while the constitutional legality of the proposed secession is determined.