structural:reformatting, structural:expansion
History

The islands were settled around 1500 BC, when various peoples migrated there. Eventually the islands were claimed by Spain in 1521. In the 18th century the people of the northern Marianas were forced by Spain to relocate, and when they returned new peoples had migrated there. In 1899 Spain sold the Northern Marianas to Germany in the Spanish-German Treaty of 1899, while Guam went to the United States. At the end of World War I, with the defeat of Germany, the islands became a part of the Japanese Mandate under the League of Nations, starting in 1918. The islands were liberated from the Japanese in the Battle of Saipan in 1944, and after the war became part of the UN Trust Territory called the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI). Over the decades integration with Guam was rejected and eventually the islands left the TTPI and became a part of the US in 1986. The Northern Marianas then became the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and its residents are US citizens. In 2009, they elected a non-voting delegate to the US Congress.