Clipperton Island

 Clipperton Island is an uninhabited coral atoll in the eastern Pacific Ocean about 600 nautical miles southwest of Acapulco, Mexico.  It is named after the English pirate and privateer John Clipperton, who waged a private war on the Spanish in the early eighteen Century and allegedly used the island as a base (although there is little evidence to support this latter claim).  A small French flotilla officially discovered the island in 1711 and claimed it for King Louis XIV.  After that, it was visited occasionally by passing French naval vessels and at least one scientific expedition (in 1725).  Mexico asserted a claim on the island in 1848, but took little overt activity until 1897, when a gunboat was dispatched to occupy the island.  Previously, an American company attempted to establish a guano mining operation on Clipperton Island, but the US government disavowed any claims on the territory.  The Mexican government leased guano mining rights to a British company in 1906 and not long thereafter upwards of 100 people were living on the island, supplied by a ship from Acapulco every two months.  The supply trips ceased in 1915 due to the discord of the Mexican Revolution.  By 1917, all but one of the male adults had died from scurvy or other causes.  The remaining male proclaimed himself king, but was soon killed by one of the women.  The survivors were evacuated by a passing US Navy gunship.  There have been no further attempts to colonize Clipperton Island, although it was occupied briefly by the United States during World War II, when they attempted to establish an airbase.  There is so little land on the atoll, though, that the effort was abandoned.  While the atoll has a circumference of over seven miles, this consists of a sand and coral ring averaging 500 feet in width surrounding a fresh-water lagoon.  The land has an average elevation of about six feet above sea level.  There is, though, a volcanic outcrop, called Clipperton Rock on the southeast portion of the atoll with an elevation of about 90 feet.  Castaway fishermen occasionally fetch up on the island.  The most recent visitor was the chemical tanker Sichem Osprey, which grounded on the atoll on February 11, 2010, while on a voyage from the Panama Canal to South Korea.