00:00 Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is one of the most isolated islands in the world with a unique civilization that has fascinated people for centuries.

01:58 Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is the most remote inhabited island in the world and the first settlers were believed to have come from the Cook Islands, 5,000 kilometers away.

03:40 In the 19th century, Rapa Nui was devastated by Peruvian slave raiders who took people from the island to work in mines, and the population was further decimated by diseases brought by outsiders, leaving only 111 people on the island by 1877.

05:28 The Moai statues on Easter Island, carved from volcanic rock and representing the heads of major families, were originally placed on platforms called ahu, but most have fallen over due to civil wars, natural events, and only a few remain on the island today.

07:05 The mystery of how the Moai statues on Easter Island were moved has been solved, with the consensus view being that they were moved upright, like a refrigerator, with ropes and alternating pulling from men on either side, and their centers of gravity were carved lower to facilitate walking.

08:44 The Tangata Manu, or Birdman Cult, held an annual competition on Easter Island where representatives from each tribe would swim to a nearby island, retrieve a sooty turn egg, and return it to their village, but the practice was stopped by Christian missionaries in the 19th century; Easter Island was also known for its valuable resource of obsidian and was annexed by Chile in 1888.

10:23 The expansion of the airport runway in 1987, funded by the United States government, allowed for increased tourism on Easter Island, leading to a significant boost in the island's economy and population, although the COVID-19 pandemic caused a sudden halt in tourism and forced locals to rely on agriculture and fishing for sustenance.