French Polynesia

Marlon Brando climbs a Tahitian peak on a day off from Mutiny on the Bounty and sees Tetiaroa on the horizon

An international airport opens on Tahiti, putting French Polynesia within reach of jet travel

Hotel Bora Bora opens as the island's first large hotel — eighteen thatched huts by Hammarberg and Herman on a point between Pofai Bay and Matira Beach

Hotel Bora Bora opens with eighteen thatched huts at Pointe Raititi — the island's first hotel

Marlon Brando arrives to film Mutiny on the Bounty and meets his Polynesian co-star Tarita Teriipaia

Three Californians whose vanilla crop had failed buy a run-down Moorea property in March and name it Hotel Bali Hai after Michener

Brando marries Tarita Teriipaia, his co-star in Mutiny on the Bounty

After six years and a direct request to the president of France, Brando buys Tetiaroa for $270,000 from a nearly blind woman who moved about the island by wires strung between trees

Brando takes a 99-year lease on Tetiaroa, the twelve-motu atoll that had been the retreat of Tahitian royalty

Hotel Bora Bora builds fifteen overwater bungalows and makes the format world-famous ⚑ the hotel is often credited with inventing it three years too early

Hotel Bora Bora builds bungalows on stilts over the lagoon; the format becomes the island's signature

Pearl Resorts opens in French Polynesia Pearl Resorts

Brando partners with Richard Bailey to plan an eco-resort on Tetiaroa; he insists on no fossil fuels, no asphalt and no overwater bungalows

Brando dies; Tetiaroa closes to visitors and the atoll is left to its birds

Hotel Bora Bora closes in October for a reconstruction that never happens

The Brando opens on Motu Onetahi under Richard Bailey's Pacific Beachcomber — 35 villas, seawater air-conditioning, and a bar named after Brando's factotum

The Brando opens on 1 July, ten years to the day after Marlon Brando's death

The Brando opens on Tetiaroa, the atoll Marlon Brando bought in 1967

Guy Laliberté opens Nukutepipi, the atoll he bought in 2007