Discovered while looking about Wikipedia for events of historic
significance on these dates, was this entry for March 18:
1959 - American President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill
into law allowing for Hawaiian statehood, which would
become official on August 21.
So, uh ... why the wait? If I'm counting correctly that's a
pause of five months between officially ruling that Hawaii should be
a state and deciding that Hawaii has become a state. Granting it takes
time to organize the territorial government into a state government, but
I'd imagine all the work and redesign of letterheads and such could be
done before the statehood bill gets out of committee. They can't have
taken Hawaii completely by surprise.
I don't see any obvious historic significance to August 21, or
to that week, which would make it an auspicious date for Hawaii statehood.
The 21st I assume was chosen because as a Friday it allowed the thing to
be a long weekend, but otherwise ... why not declare statehood effective
March 20, then?
--
Joseph Nebus
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