Anyway to answer your question,how was the island formed?Running down the middle of the Atlantic,from North to South,is a geological weak spot in the Earths crust called The Mid Atlantic Ridge. This a fault line,much like the San Andreas fault line in America,but on a much larger scale.The volcanic activity along this ridge has thrown up,from the seabed,many an island including St Helena, the Azores,Iceland and Ascension.Don`t worry too much about volcanic activity on the island,the last eruption was 700 years ago at Sisters Peak.

Ascension was discovered in 1501 by a chap named Juan da Nova,a Portuguese explorer.The island made little impact on him and he carried on his travels without even naming it. It wasn`t until a couple of years later when the rather grandly named Alphonse D`Albuquerque landed on the island,did it get its title Ascension Island.

That was about it for 300 years apart from the odd shipwreck,until 1815 when Napolean was exciled to St Helena.The British claimed Ascension for their own and set up a naval garrison to prevent any rescue attempt that may be made.The garrison site is now Georgetown,the islands capital.The naval garrison grew and by the time Napolean died it had become an important naval depot and a quarentine area for sailors with fever. The Navy handed control of the island over to the Marines who in 1829 renamed the garrison Georgetown after King George IV.

The Navy moved out in 1922 and for a while the only residents of the island were the workers of the Eastern Telegraph Company,or Cable and Wireless as they are now known.When the US entered World War Two they decided Ascension would be a good place for an airfield,and so Wideawake Airfield was born.By 1943,4000 troops were stationed on the island.At the end of the war they all left and the population fell back to 170.In the 50`s the US moved back in and installed missile tracking stations.They extended the runway to 10,000 feet to enable large aircraft to fly the supplies in needed for these stations.In 1964 the BBC set up their mid Atlantic relay station to boost the World Service around the globe. In 1966 NASA built a tracking station which was dismantled in 89,but the building still exsists as an outward bound centre.

The outbreak of the Falklands War finally put Ascension on the map.The island became crucial to the British task force sent to remove the Argentinians.At the peak of the conflict Wideawake Airfield became the busiest airport in the world. The British even launched a bombing mission using two Vulcan bombers and a relay of Victor tankers.The mission succeded and one of the Vulcans managed to fly to the Falklands,drop its bombs on the runway at Port Stanley,and get back to Ascension.

After the war,and to this day,the island is of great importance to the RAF who use it as a staging post between the UK and the Falklands.In 1983 the RAF built the settlement that is known as Travellers Hill.Today Travellers Hill is the home of the civillian workforce employed to carry out the tasks once performed by RAF personel.It also provides accomadation for servicemen on their way to the Falklands and for servicemen on R+R in Ascension.