evidence: The United States formally annexed Wake under President William McKinley on 17 January 1899 in a ceremony on Wake conducted by Commander E.D. Taussig of the USS Bennington. The 1923 Tanager expedition mapped Wake Atoll and cataloged its biota. The U.S. Navy took over jurisdiction of Wake in 1935 by Executive Order. Pan American Airways constructed an airport during that same year. President F.D. Roosevelt made Wake a National Defense area in February 1941, and it was a naval and air base from 1939 to 1941. Wake was occupied by Japanese forces during World War II after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Wake was then transferred back to the United States in surrender documents and reoccupied by the United States in September 1945. President J.F. Kennedy, by Executive Order No. 11048 on 5 September 1962, made the Secretary of the Interior responsible for the civil administration of the atoll. The order vested in the Secretary all executive and legislative authority necessary for that administration and all judicial authority other than the authority of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi.