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A 7.7 magnitude earthquake strikes the Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, causing tsunami warnings in Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and other countries in the South Pacific, and generating a 60 cm tsunami in Lenakel, Vanuatu.
2023-05-19

The Australian Defence Force and New Zealand Defence Force send aircraft to assess the damage in Tonga as communications continue to be disrupted in the Pacific islands.
2022-01-16

Tonga's main island of Tongatapu enters a seven-day lockdown that closes non-essential businesses and bans sales of alcohol and mass gatherings, except small funerals, after the country reports its first case of COVID-19 in a person who travelled from Christchurch, New Zealand on a repatriation flight last week.
2021-11-2

The Speaker of the Tongan Parliament, Lord Fakafanua, introduces the Illicit Drugs Control (Amendment) Bill 2021 for debate in the legislative assembly. The Speaker wants a mandatory death sentence for serious drug offenses. Tonga has a moratorium on the death penalty and has not used it in more than four decades.
2021-08-16

Salote Mafileʻo Pilolevu Tuita, Princess of Tonga, received her first dose of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, thereby becoming the first person to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the disease-free country.
2021-04-16

About 67% of Tonga's registered voters participate in the country's general election.
2017-11-16

From the Diocese of Tonga, Catholic Cardinal Soane Patita Paini Mafi is welcomed at the Co-Cathedral of Saint Theresa of the Child Jesus in Honolulu, Hawaii. Appointed by Pope Francis, Mafi is the first and youngest cardinal from the small South Pacific nation of Tonga.
2016-01-16

The government of Tonga reveals a proposal to trade the disputed Minerva Reefs to Fiji in exchange for the Lau Islands, in an effort to settle a decades old territorial dispute between the two Pacific countries.
2014-07-3

Cyclone Evan is expected to hit northern parts of Tonga before turning south towards Fiji.
2012-12-15

Cyclone Rene hammers Tonga with gusts of 160 kilometres an hour, isolating Tongans for several days. Widespread damage is reported in the capital, Nukuʻalofa, and contact is lost with the northern island of Vavaʻu.
2010-02-15