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Aur was settled within the wider Marshall Islands by Marshallese communities whose ancestors reached the atolls through highly developed traditions of ocean navigation. Knowledge of currents, winds, stars, wave patterns and bird movements enabled voyagers to travel between low-lying islands scattered across the central Pacific. On Aur, as elsewhere in the archipelago, society developed around extended family networks, customary land rights, fishing, breadfruit cultivation and the management of limited freshwater resources. The atoll's lagoon and reef were not simply geographical features but part of the community's food system, transport network and cultural landscape.

Before European colonial rule, Marshallese political and social life was organised through chiefly authority, clan relationships and customary obligations rather than a centralised national government. Land and lagoon resources were connected to lineage, and decisions affecting an atoll involved relationships between iroij, or chiefs, alaps, or land managers, and the wider community. These structures continued to shape everyday life after outside powers arrived. On a small atoll such as Aur, the importance of family connections, customary ownership and communal cooperation remained especially pronounced because survival depended on shared knowledge and access to dispersed island resources.

European ships began visiting the Marshall Islands in the sixteenth century, but sustained colonial influence developed later. Spain asserted an early claim, while German administration from the late nineteenth century brought the islands more firmly into an overseas commercial system. Germany was followed by Japanese rule after the First World War, when the Marshall Islands became part of the Japanese-administered South Seas Mandate under the League of Nations. Outer atolls such as Aur experienced these changes through altered administration, trade and communication, while local communities retained their language, customary relationships and maritime practices.

The Second World War transformed the Marshall Islands as Japanese military installations and Allied operations brought conflict to the archipelago. After the war, the United States administered the islands as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. The period introduced new political institutions, education and public services, but it also tied island communities to wider American strategic and economic systems. The nuclear testing programme centred on Bikini and Enewetak atolls had consequences across the Marshall Islands, reinforcing the national experience of displacement, environmental concern and dependence on decisions made far beyond remote communities such as Aur.

The Marshall Islands became self-governing in free association with the United States under the Compact of Free Association, with the Republic of the Marshall Islands established in 1986. National government and modern communications have linked Aur more closely to Majuro and other population centres, yet outer-island life remains shaped by customary land tenure, subsistence activity, remittances and irregular transport. Climate change has added a pressing contemporary dimension: sea-level rise, coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion and changing weather patterns threaten low atolls whose history and identity are inseparable from the ocean.