Kalākaua (November 16, 1836 – January 20, 1891), born David Laʻamea Kamananakapu Mahinulani Naloiaehuokalani Lumialani Kalākaua and sometimes called The Merrie Monarch, was the last king of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. He reigned from February 12, 1874 until his death in San Francisco, California, on January 20, 1891. Kalākaua had a convivial personality and enjoyed entertaining guests with his singing and ukelele playing. At his coronation and his birthday jubilee, the hula that had been banned in the kingdom, became a celebration of Hawaiian culture.

During his reign, the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 brought great prosperity to the kingdom. It's renewal continued the prosperity, but allowed the United States to have exclusive use of Pearl Harbor. In 1881, he took a trip around the world to encourage the immigration of contract sugar plantation workers. Kalākaua wanted Hawaiians to broaden their educations beyond their nation, and instituted a government program to financially sponsor students who qualified to be sent abroad to further their educations. Some of Kalākaua's accomplishments were controversial at the time. Two of those, the statue of Kamehameha and the building of ʻIolani Palace were expensive endeavors, but are today popular tourist attractions.

Extravagant expenditures and his plans for a Polynesian confederation played into the hands of annexationists who were already working towards a United States takeover of Hawaii. In 1887, he was forced to sign a new constitution that made the monarchy little more than a figurehead position. He had faith in his sister Liliuokalani's abilities to rule as regent when he named her as his heir-apparent in 1877. After his death, she became the last monarch of Hawaii.

Kalākaua was born on September 2, 1838, to Caesar Kaluaiku Kapaʻakea and Analea Keohokālole, in the grass hut compound, belonging to his maternal grandfather ʻAikanaka, at the base of Punchbowl Crater in Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu. Of the aliʻi class of Hawaiian nobility, his family were considered collateral relations of the reigning House of Kamehameha sharing common descent from the 18th-century aliʻi nui Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku. From his biological parents, he descended from Keaweaheulu and Kameʻeiamoku, two of the five royal counselors of Kamehameha I during his conquest of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Kameʻeiamoku, the grandfather of both his mother and father, was one of the royal twins alongside Kamanawa depicted on the Hawaiian coat of arms. However, Kalākaua and his siblings traced their high rank from their mother's line of descent, referring to themselves as members the "Keawe-a-Heulu line", although later historians would refer to the family as the House of Kalākaua. The second surviving child of a large family, his biological siblings included his elder brother James Kaliokalani, and younger siblings Lyda Kamakaʻeha (later renamed Liliʻuokalani), Anna Kaʻiulani, Kaʻiminaʻauao, Miriam Likelike and William Pitt Leleiohoku II.

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