HAPPY STATEHOOD DAY!

News Release from Honolulu Republican Party, August 18, 2017

Statehood Day is celebrated annually on the third Friday in August to commemorate the anniversary of the 1959 admission of Hawaii into the Union. It was first celebrated in 1969.

The Admission Act, formally An Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union (Pub.L. 86–3, 73 Stat. 4, enacted March 18, 1959) is a statute enacted by the 86th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on August 21, 1959 which dissolved the Territory of Hawaii and established the State of Hawaii as the 50th state to be admitted into the Union. 

Statehood bills for Hawaii were introduced into the U.S. Congress as early as 1919 by Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole.

Additional bills were introduced in 1935, 1947 and 1950. In 1959, the U.S. Congress approved the statehood bill, the Hawaii Admission Act. This was followed by a referendum in which Hawaiian residents voted 94% in support of statehood (the ballot question was: "Shall Hawaii immediately be admitted into the Union as a state?"), and on August 21, 1959 (the third Friday in August), President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation making Hawaii the 50th state.  President Eisenhower also unveiled the new fifty star flag.

Respectfully,

Brett Kulbis

Honolulu County Chairman