US territory in the Mariana Islands, taken from Spain under the Treaty of Paris (1898) and placed under US Navy administration (Navy control from 23 December 1898; naval governors from 1899). Organized as an unincorporated territory with a civilian government, US citizenship for residents, and a Bill of Rights under the Guam Organic Act of 1950 (enacted 1 August 1950), transferring jurisdiction from the Navy to the Department of the Interior. Continuously American except for a two-and-a-half-year Japanese military occupation during World War II (captured 8 December 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor; liberated 21 July 1944, commemorated annually as Liberation Day). Guam remains an unincorporated, organized US territory today, listed by the UN as a non-self-governing territory, with a non-voting delegate to the US House of Representatives since 1972.
Remains an unincorporated United States territory and strategic base; Japanese occupation interrupted American rule from 1941 to 1944.
The standard scholarly history of Guam across the naval era, WWII occupation, the Organic Act, and modern territorial status.
First-person account touching on Guam under Japanese occupation and the WWII period.
Places 20th-century Guam within the broader arc of US territorial policy in the Pacific.