Hawaii was admitted as the 50th U.S. state in 1959.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the proclamation admitting Hawaii on August 21, 1959. The admission followed congressional approval of the Hawaii Admission Act and a referendum in which voters strongly supported statehood. Hawaii’s admission came shortly after Alaska became the 49th state on January 3 of the same year.
Hawaii had been a U.S. territory since 1898, when the United States annexed the islands through the Newlands Resolution. It became a territory in 1900. Statehood proposals appeared repeatedly during the twentieth century before Congress and Hawaiian voters approved the final transition.
Hawaii is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands and the only state located outside North America’s continental mainland. Its admission completed the modern fifty-state union. Hawaii’s Statehood Day, also called Admission Day, commemorates the August 21, 1959, proclamation.