Here you can find a short summary of the history of our fair island and Free Territory, from it's formation from a volcanic hotspot millions of years ago to today! Clicking on the links in the headers will take you to a page that has more detail on that specific period in our history
Ochay was created at the crux in the 'L' of the Emperor-Hawaiian Seamount Chain, a chain of volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean. It stayed uninhabited until the early 1700s, when Japanese fishermen began staying there, calling it Daikakuji Jima, to tap it's fertile fish resources. With the advent of the Maritime Fur Trade in the late 18th and early 19th century, the American Fur Company built a port called Port John Jacob Astor to help smuggle goods in and out of an isolationist Japan. The port dried up with the rest of the fur trade, but it remains to this day as Astor. Come the advent of the Empire of Japan, the island was militarized, and an attempt at building a grand port on the eastern shore of the island was tried but couldn't get finished before both the Soviets and the Americans invaded it in 1945.
Both powers were unwilling to give up the island to the other, and the cold war played out as it was unofficially divided between 1945 and 1953. With the end of the Korean War, the Soviets and the Americans agreed to create an independent republic on the island, neutral from both spheres. The country began to flourish under the tenure of Prime Minister Takemoto, until Boris Pimenov, leader of the hardliners in the United Socialist Party, killed his reformist opposition and blamed it on Takemoto to thrust himself into power in 1958. He ruled with an iron fist, declaring the island the Pacific Socialist Union, and was always kept an arm's length away from Moscow, before he began to turn away from them in favor of countries like China and Albania. This led to a decline in the economy, and the ripe conditions for the CIA to arm exiles and use them to topple the Pimenov government in 1965, building an American-led suspect democracy instead. The Republic of Grand Pacific Island was then used as a common landing point for troops heading in or out of Vietnam, propping up the local economy once more. This prosperity, unfortunately, faded when the GIs stopped arriving and the Vietnam War ended. Yuri Andropov and his KGB would use that dissatisfaction to overthrow the government once more in 1975, annexing what was now called the South Kuril Island directly into the Soviet Union. Popular resistance was significant at this point, however, and in 1982 independence was granted to South Kuril Island. Later that same year, Ronald Reagan began a US invasion of the island in hopes of returning it to the US sphere of influence, but this was met with decreasing success as time went on.
The May Revolution (1983-Present)
As the invasion, which was only supposed to last a few days, dragged into months and months, the people began to grow increasingly tired of being subject to foreign imperial projects. This discontent exploded after US soldiers killed 23 innocent protestors on May 4th in McKinley, and the following day a coalition of citizens managed to force the troops to retreat from the city. Afterwards, as US and communist government forces continued to battle in Frolov, a similar coalition was assembled to liberate the city from both forces in a daring military operation. From there, a wave of rebellions alike the ones in McKinley and Frolov swept the country, and dissidents met together to write and sign the Ochay Declaration, declaring the principle of Ochay as being opposed to imperialism and domination no matter where or from who. The Ochayans, as they called themselves, then marshalled a campaign of harassment and guerilla actions to force the American forces to retreat from their final held city of Astor, forming the Free Territory of Ochay that flourishes to this day, still following it's founding principles.