March 18 marks the eleventh anniversary of the 2014 Sunflower Student Movement. Students occupied the Taiwanese legislature to block a trade agreement between Taiwan and China, which the public came to believe gave too much economic leverage to China, a power that regularly threatens to invade the free and democratic island nation.
The event awakened a deep concern about China’s dangerous encroachment as well as further impressing a “Taiwanese identity.” The protest may have influenced the 2014 Umbrella movement in Hong Kong as well as leading to electoral victories in Taiwan for the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party in 2016 and again in 2020.
On March 18, 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill enabling Hawaii to become the 50th state in the Union. The official day of statehood was set for (and became) August 21 of that year.
The statehood signing occurred exactly 85 years after The Kingdom of Hawaii formalized its treaty with the U. S. establishing exclusive trading rights.