Ford Island is an islet in the center of Pearl Harbor, Oahu, in the US state of Hawaii. Its original area of 334 acres (135 ha) was increased during the 1930s to 441 acres (178 ha) with fill dirt after the US Navy dredged Pearl Harbor to accommodate battleships. The island was the site of a Hawaiian fertility ritual until missionaries stopped the practice by 1830. It was given by Kamehameha I to Spanish deserter Francisco de Paula Marín, and was later owned by physician Seth Porter Ford. In 1917 the US Army bought part of it for use by an aviation division, and by 1939 it was taken over by the US Navy. It was at the center of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964. By the late 1990s hundreds of millions of dollars had been invested in real estate development and infrastructure. Ford Island is home to the USS Arizona memorial, the USS Missouri museum, the Pacific Warfighting Center, and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. (Full article...)