Worldwide events; zarb e jamhoor newspaper; 183 issue; 06 12 jul, 2014

Independence Day Comoros - Jul 06

The Comoros, officially the Union of the Comoros is a sovereign, archipelago island nation in the Indian Ocean, located off the eastern coast of Africa, on the northern end of the Mozambique Channel, between northeastern Mozambique and northwestern Madagascar. Other countries near to the Comoros are Tanzania to the northwest and the Seychelles to the northeast. The capital is Moroni on Grande Comore.

At 1,862 km2 (719 sq mi) (excluding Mayotte), the Comoros is the third-smallest African nation by area. The population (excluding Mayotte) is estimated at 798,000.

Its name derives from the Arabic word ‫ رمق‬qamar ("moon"). The archipelago is notable for its diverse culture and history, as a nation formed at the crossroads of many civilizations. It is the southernmost member state of the Arab League. Though in the contested island of Mayotte the sole official language is French, the "Union of the Comoros" has three official languages: Comorian, Arabic, and French.

The country officially consists of the four major islands in the volcanic Comoros archipelago: northwesternmost Grande Comore or Ngazidja, Mohéli or Mwali, Anjouan or Nzwani, and southeasternmost Mayotte or Maore, as well as many smaller islands. However, the government of the Comoros (or its predecessors, since independence) has never administered the island of Mayotte, which France administers as an overseas department. Mayotte was the only island in the archipelago that voted against independence from France in 1974; the latter has vetoed United Nations Security Councilresolutions that would affirm Comorian sovereignty over the island. In addition, a 29 March 2009 referendum on Mayotte's becoming an overseas department of France in 2011 was passed overwhelmingly by the people of Mayotte.

The Comoros is the only state to be a member of all of the following: African Union,Francophonie, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Arab League, and Indian Ocean Commission. The country has had a history marked by numerous coups d'état sinceindependence in 1975. As of 2008 about half the population lives below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.

History

Precolonial inhabitation:

The first human inhabitants of the Comoros Islands are thought to have been African andAustronesian settlers who traveled to the islands by boat. These people arrived no later than the sixth century AD, the date of the earliest known archaeological site, found on Nzwani, although settlement beginning as early as the first century has been postulated.

The islands of Comoros became populated by a succession of diverse groups from the coast of Africa, the Persian Gulf, the Malay Archipelago, and Madagascar. Swahili settlers first reached the islands as a part of the greater Bantu expansion that took place in Africa throughout Moroni with Harbor Bay and Centhe first millennium. tral Mosque, Capital of the CoAccording to a famous pre-Islamic mythology: A jinni (possibly Spirit) dropped a jewel, which formed a great circular inferno. This became moros the Kartala volcano which, created the island of Comoros. The early inhabitants of the islands worshiped nature and most probably the moon which they believed controlled the tides, these beliefs unified the islands.

Development of the Comoros is divided into phases, beginning with Swahili influence and settlement in the Dembeni phase (ninth to tenth centuries), during which each island maintained a single, central village. From the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, trade with the island of Madagascar and merchants from the Middle East flourished, smaller villages emerged, and existing towns expanded. The citizens and historians of the Comoros state that early Arab settlements date to even before their known arrival to the archipelago, and Swahili historians frequently trace genealogies back to Arab ancestors who had traveled from Yemen mainly Hadhramawt and Oman.

In the year 933 Al-Masudi mentions Omani sailors, who call the Comoros islands "The Perfume Islands" and sing of waves that break rhythmically along broad, pearl-sand beaches, the light breezes scented with ylang-ylang, a component in many perfumes.

In 1154, Arab geographer al-Idrisi depicted the Comoros on a map and mentioned how its sailors sold metal tools for gold and ivory in East Africa; he considered the island more stable and individually prosperous than the busy coastal ports of Mombasa, Zanzibar, Kilwa and Kitao. In the 15th century, the Arab seafarer Ahmad ibn Majid drew the individual routes among these islands.

Medieval Comoros:

According to legend, in 632, upon hearing of Islam, islanders are said to have dispatched an emissary, the navigator Qumralu, toMecca—but by the time he arrived there, the Prophet Muhammad had died. Nonetheless, after a stay in Mecca, he returned to Qanbalu and led the gradual conversion of his islanders to Islam.

Some of the earliest accounts on the island of Comoros were derived from the works of Al-Masudi, that mentions the importance of the Comoro Islands, like other coastal areas in the region, along early Islamic trade routes and how the islands were frequently visited byMuslims including Persian and Arab merchants and sailors from Basra in search of coral, ylang-ylang, ivory, beads, spices, gold, they also brought Islam to the people of the Zanj including Comoros. As the importance of Comoros grew along the East African coast smallmosques and large mosques were constructed. Despite its distance from the coast, Comoros is situated along the Swahili Coast inEast Africa. It was a major hub of trade and an important location in the sea route between Kilwa (an outlet for Zimbabwean gold) inMozambique and Mombasa in Kenya.

After the arrival of the Portuguese and the collapse of East African sultanates, the powerful Omani Sultan Saif bin Sultan began to defeat the Dutch and the Portuguese. His successor Said bin Sultan increased Omani Arab influence in region especially when nearbyZanzibar came under Omani rule, and Comorian culture, especially architecture and religion also inhibited features that were unique to the plurality of the region. Sultans on the Comoros a large community of rival rulers controlled much of the islands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

By the time Europeans showed interest in the Comoros, the traditional Muslim, Swahili and Arab heritage islands began to adopt to the changes introduced by European colonization. More recent western scholarship by Thomas Spear and Randall Pouwells emphasizes black African historical predominance over the diffusionist perspective.

European contact and French colonization:

By the year 1506 the Portuguese landed on the islands and began to challenge the Bajas(Bantu Muslim chiefs) and Fanis (lesser chiefs). In the years that followed the islands were sacked by the forces of Afonso de Albuquerque in the year 1514 by the Portuguese. The ruler of the Comoran Muslims barely survived after hiding in an extinct volcanic crater and despite the inadequacy of their cover, the Portuguese miraculously never found them. In the year 1648 the islands were raided by the Malagasy pirates, they sacked Iconi, a coastal trading hub near Ngazidja after defeating the weak Sultan.

In 1793, Malagasy warriors from Madagascar first started raiding the islands for slaves, and later settled and seized control in many locations. On Comoros, it was estimated in 1865 that as much as 40% of the population consisted of slaves. France first establishedcolonial rule A large dhow with lateen sail in the Comoros in 1841. The first French colonists landed in Mayotte, rigs. and Andrian Tsouli, the Malagasy King of Mayotte, signed the Treaty of April 1841, which ceded the island to the French authorities.

In 1886, Mohéli was placed under French protection by its Queen Salima Machimba. That same year, after consolidating his authority over all of Grande Comore, Sultan Said Ali agreed to French protection of his island, though he retained sovereignty until 1909. Also in 1909, Sultan Said Muhamed of Anjouan abdicated in favor of French rule.

The Comoros (orLes Comores) was officially made a French colony in 1912, and the islands were placed under the administration of the French colonial governor general of Madagascar in 1914.

The Comoros served as a way station for merchants sailing to the Far East and India until the opening of the Suez Canal significantly reduced traffic passing through the Mozambique Channel. The native commodities exported by the Comoros were coconuts, cattle and tortoiseshell. French settlers, French-owned companies, and wealthy Arab merchants established a plantation-based economy that now uses about one-third of the land for export crops. After its annexation, France converted Mayotte into a sugar plantation colony. The other islands were soon transformed as well, and the major crops of ylang-ylang, vanilla,coffee, cocoa bean, and sisal were introduced.

Agreement was reached with France in 1973 for Comoros to become independent in 1978. The deputies of Mayotte abstained. Referendums were held on all four of the islands. Three voted for independence by large margins, while Mayotte voted against, and remains under French administration. On 6 July 1975, however, the Comorian parliament passed a unilateral resolution declaring independence. Ahmed Abdallah proclaimed the independence of the Comorian State (État comorien; ‫ )رمقلا ةلود‬and became its first president.

Independence:

The next 30 years were a period of political turmoil. On 3 August 1975, mercenary Bob Denard, with clandestine support from Jacques Foccart and the French government, removed president Ahmed Abdallah from office in an armed coup and replaced him with United National Front of the Comoros (UNF) member Prince Said Mohammed Jaffar. Months later, in January 1976, Jaffar was ousted in favor of his Minister of Defense Ali Soilih.

At this time, the population of Mayotte voted against independence from France in two referenda. The first, held in December 1974, won 63.8% support for maintaining ties with France, while the second, held in February 1976, confirmed that vote with an overwhelming 99.4%. The three remaining islands, ruled by President Soilih, instituted a number of socialist and isolationist policies that soon strained relations with France. On 13 May 1978, Bob Denard returned to overthrow President Soilih and reinstate Abdallah with the support of the French, Rhodesian and South African governments.

During Soilih's brief rule, he faced seven additional coup attempts until he was finally forced from office and killed.

In contrast to Soilih, Abdallah's presidency was marked by authoritarian rule and increased adherence to traditional Islam and the country was renamed the Federal Islamic Republic of Comoros (République Fédérale Islamique des Comores; ‫رمقلا ةيروهمج‬ ‫) ةيمالسإلا ةيداحتإلا‬. Abdallah continued as president until 1989 when, fearing a probable coup d'état, he signed a decree ordering the Presidential Guard, led by Bob Denard, to disarm the armed Sultan Said Ali bin Said Omar of forces. Shortly after the signing of the decree, Abdallah was al- Grande Comore (1897) legedly shot dead in his office by a disgruntled military officer, though later sources claim an antitank missile was launched into his bedroom and killed him.Although Denard was also injured, it is suspected that Abdallah's killer was a soldier under his command.

A few days later, Bob Denard was evacuated to South Africa by French paratroopers. Said Mohamed Djohar, Soilih's older half-brother, then became president, and served until September 1995, when Bob Denard returned and attempted another coup. This time France intervened with paratroopers and forced Denard to surrender. The French removed Djohar to Reunion, and the Paris-backedMohamed Taki Abdulkarim became president by election. He led the country from 1996, during a time of labor crises, government suppression, and secessionist conflicts, until his death November 1998. He was succeeded by Interim President Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde.

The islands of Anjouan and Mohéli declared their independence from the Comoros in 1997, in an attempt to restore French rule. But France rejected their request, leading to bloody confrontations between federal troops and rebels.

In April 1999, Colonel Azali Assoumani, Army Chief of Staff, seized power in a bloodless coup, overthrowing the Interim President Massounde, citing weak leadership in the face of the crisis. This was the Comoros' 18th coup d'état since independence in 1975. Azali, however, failed to consolidate power and reestablish control over the islands, which was the subject of international criticism. The African Union, under the auspices of President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, imposed sanctions on Anjouan to help broker negotiations and effect reconciliation. The official name of the country was changed to the Union of the Comoros and a new system of political autonomy was instituted for each island, plus a union government for the three islands was added.

Azali stepped down in 2002 to run in the democratic election of the President of the Comoros, which he won. Under ongoing international pressure, as a military ruler who had originally come to power by force, and was not always democratic while in office, Azali led the Comoros through constitutional changes that enabled new elections. A Loi des compétences law was passed in early 2005 that defines the responsibilities of each governmental body, and is in the process of implementation. The elections in 2006 were won by Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi, a Sunni Muslim cleric nicknamed the "Ayatollah" for his time spent studying Islam in Iran. Azali honored the election results, thus allowing the first peaceful and democratic exchange of power for the archipelago.

Colonel Mohammed Bacar, a French-trained former gendarme, seized power as President in Anjouan in 2001. He staged a vote in An 1808 map refers to the islands June 2007 to confirm his leadership that was rejected as illegal by as "Camora". the Comoros federal government and the African Union. On 25 March 2008 hundreds of soldiers from the African Union and Comoros seized rebel-held Anjouan, generally welcomed by the population: there have been reports of hundreds, if not thousands, of people tortured during Bacar’s tenure. Some rebels were killed and injured, but there are no official figures. At least 11 civilians were wounded.

Some officials were imprisoned. Bacar fled in a speedboat to the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte to seek asylum. Anti-French protests followed in Comoros (see 2008 invasion of Anjouan).

Since independence from France, the Comoros experienced more than 20 coups or attempted coups.

Following elections in late 2010, former Vice-President Ikililou Dhoinine was inaugurated as President on 26 May 2011. A member of the ruling party, Dhoinine was supported in the election by the incumbent President Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi. Dhoinine, a pharmacist by training, is the first President of Comoros from the island of Mohéli.

Statehood Day Lithuania - Jul 06

Statehood Day is an annual public holiday in Lithuania celebrated on July 6 to commemorate the coronation in 1253 of Mindaugas as the first and only King of Lithuania. The exact day of this event is disputable and was chosen according to the hypothesis of Edvardas Gudavičius, formulated in 1989. The day has officially been celebrated since 1991.

John Huss Day Czech Republic - Jul 06

Jan Hus often referred to in English as John Hus or John Huss, was a Czech priest, philosopher, reformer, and master at Charles University in Prague. After John Wycliffe, the theorist of ecclesiastical Reformation, Hus is considered the first Church reformer (living prior to Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli).

He is famed for having been burned at the stake for heresy against the doctrines of theCatholic Church, including those on ecclesiology, the Eucharist, and other theological topics.

Hus was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century, and his teachings had a strong influence on the states of Europe, most immediately in the approval for the existence of a reformist Bohemian religious denomination, and, more than a century later, on Martin Luther himself.

Between 1420 and 1431, the Hussite forces defeated five consecutive papal crusades against followers of Hus. Their defence and rebellion against Roman Catholics became known as the Hussite Wars. A century later, as many as 90% of inhabitants of the Czech lands were non-Catholic and followed the teachings of Hus and his successors.

Early life Hus was born in Husinec, Kingdom of Bohemia in 1369.

He traveled to Prague at an early age where he supported himself by singing and serving in churches. His conduct was positive and his commitment to his studies was remarkable.

In 1393, Hus earned a degree of Bachelor of Arts from the University of Prague and he earned his master's degree in 1396. In 1400, he was ordained as a priest and became rector of the university in 1402–03. He was appointed a preacher at the newly built Bethlehem chapel around the same time. Hus was a strong advocate for the Czechs, and therefore the Realists, and he was influenced by the writings of John Wycliffe. Although many works of Wycliffe were proscribed in 1403 by the church, Hus translated Trialogus into Czechand helped to distribute it.

Execution The executioners undressed Hus and tied his hands behind his

back with ropes, and bound his neck with a chain to a stake around which wood and straw had been piled up so that it covered him to the neck. In the same truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached, drawing upon the sayings and positions of the holy doctors, I am ready to die today." He was then burned at the stake, and his ashes thrown into the Rhine River.

Anecdotally, it has been claimed that the executioners had some problems scaling up the fire. An old woman came closer to the bonfire and threw a relatively small amount of brushwood on it.

Hus, seeing it, then said, "Sancta Simplicitas!" (Holy Simplicity!)

This sentence's Czech equivalent ("svatá prostota!", or, in vocative form "svatá prostoto!") is still used to comment upon a stupid action.

Republic Day Malawi - Jul 06

Malawi officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Malawi is over 118,000 km2 (45,560 sq mi) with an estimated population of more than 13,900,000. Its capital is Lilongwe, which is also Malawi's largest city; the second largest is Blantyre and the third is Mzuzu. The name Malawi comes from the Maravi, an old name of the Nyanja people that inhabit the area. The country is also nicknamed "The Warm Heart of Africa".

The area of Africa now known as Malawi was colonized by migrating tribes of Bantu around the 10th century. In 1891 the area was colonized again, this time by the British. In 1953 Malawi, then known as Nyasaland, became part of the semi-independent Central African Federation (CAF). The Federation was dissolved in 1963 and in 1964, Nyasaland gained full independence and was renamed Malawi. Upon gaining independence it became a single-party state under the presidency of Hastings Banda, who remained president until 1994, when he was ousted from power. Joyce Banda (no relation) is the current president, raised to that position after president Bingu Mutharika died in 2012. She is the first female leader in Malawi. Malawi has a democratic, multi-party government. Malawi has a small military force that includes an army, a navy and an air wing. Malawi's foreign policy is pro-Western and includes positive diplomatic relations with most countries and participation in several international organizations.

Malawi is among the world's least-developed countries. The economy is heavily based in agriculture, with a largely rural population. The Malawian government depends heavily on outside aid to meet development needs, although this need (and the aid offered) has decreased since 2000. The Malawian government faces challenges in building and expanding the economy, improving education, health care, environmental protection, and becoming financially independent. Malawi has several programs developed since 2005 that focus on these issues, and the country's outlook appears to be improving, with improvements in economic growth, education and healthcare seen in 2007 and 2008.

Malawi has a low life expectancy and high infant mortality. There is a high prevalence ofHIV/AIDS, which is a drain on the labor force and government expenditures. There is a diverse population of native peoples, Asians and Europeans, with several languages spoken and an array of religious beliefs. Although there was tribal conflict in the past, by 2008 it had diminished considerably and the concept of a Malawian nationality had begun to form. Malawi has a culture combining native and colonial aspects, including sports, art, dance and music.

History The area of Africa now known as Malawi had a very small population of hunter gatherers before waves of Bantu-

speaking peoples began emigrating from the north around the 10th century. Although most of the Bantu peoples continued south, some remained permanently and founded tribes based on common ancestry. By 1500 AD, the tribes had established a kingdom that reached from north of what is now Nkhotakota to the Zambezi River and from Lake Malawi to the Luangwa River in what is now Zambia.

Soon after 1600, with the area mostly united under one native ruler, native tribesmen began encountering, trading with and making alliances with Portuguese traders and members of the military. By 1700, however, the empire had broken up into areas controlled by many individual tribes, which was noted by the Portuguese in their information gathering. The Swahili-Arab slave trade reached its height about 150 years ago, when approximately 20,000 slaves were considered to be carried yearly fromNkhotakota to Kilwa where they were sold.

David Livingstone reached Lake Malawi (then Lake Nyasa) in 1859, when Malawi was originally known as Nyasaland under the rule of the British. In a prime example of what is sometimes called the "Thin White Line" of colonial authority in Africa, the colonial government of Nyasaland was formed in 1891. The administrators were given a budget of £10,000 per year, which was enough to employ ten European civilians, two military officers, seventy Punjab Sikhs, and eighty-five Zanzibar porters. These few employees were then expected to administer and police a territory of around 94,000 square kilometers with between one and two million people.

In 1944, the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) was formed by the Africans of Nyasaland to promote local interests to the British government. In 1953, Britain linked Nyasaland with Northern and Southern Rhodesia in what was known as the Central African Federation(CAF), for mainly political reasons. Even though the Federation was semiindependent the linking provoked opposition from African nationalists, and the NAC gained popular support. An influential opponent of the CAF was Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, a European-trained doctor working in Ghana who was persuaded to return to Nyasaland in 1958 to assist the nationalist cause. Banda was elected president of the NAC and worked to mobilize nationalist sentiment before being jailed by colonial authorities in 1959. He was released in 1960 and asked to help draft a new constitution for Nyasaland, with a clause granting Africans the majority in the colony's Legislative Counsel.

In 1961, Banda's Malawi Congress Party (MCP) gained the majority in the Legislative Council elections and Banda became Prime Minister in 1963. The Federation was dissolved in 1963, and on 6 July 1964, Nyasaland became independent from British rule and renamed itself Malawi. Under a new constitution, Malawi became a single-party state under MCP rule in 1966, and in 1970 Banda declared himself president-for-life. For almost 30 years, Banda ruled firmly, suppressing opposition to his party and ensuring that he had no personal opposition.

Despite his political severity, however, Malawi's economy while Banda was president was often cited as an example of how a poor, landlocked, heavily populated, mineral-poor country could achieve progress in both agriculture and industrial development. While in office, and using his control of the country, Banda constructed a business empire that eventually produced one-third of the country'sGDP and employed 10% of the wage-earning workforce.

Under pressure for increased political freedom, Banda agreed to a referendum in 1993, where the populace voted for a multi-party democracy. In late 1993 a presidential council was formed, the life presidency was abolished and a new constitution was put into place, effectively ending the MCP's rule. In 1994 the first multi-party elections were held in Malawi, and Bakili Muluzi became president. Muluzi remained president until 2004, when Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika was elected. Although the political environment is described as "challenging", as of 2009, the multi-party system still exists in Malawi. Multiparty parliamentary and presidential elections were held for the fourth time in Malawi in May 2009, and President Mutharika was successfully re-elected, despite charges of election fraud from his rival.

President Mutharika was seen by some as increasingly autocratic and dismissive of human rights, and in July 2011 protests over high costs of living, devolving foreign relations, poor governance and a lack of foreign exchange reserves erupted. The protests left 18 people dead and at least 44 others suffering from gun shot wounds. In April 2012, Mutharika died of a heart attack; the presidential title was taken over by former Vice President Joyce Banda.

Eino Leino Day Finland - Jul 06

Eino Leino (6 July 1878, Paltamo, Kainuu – 10 January 1926, Tuusula, Uusimaa) was a Finnish poet and journalist and is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry. His poems combine modern and Finnish folk elements. The style of much of his work is like the Kalevala and folk songs. Nature, love, and despair are frequent themes in Leino's work. He is beloved and widely read in Finland today.

Early life

Eino Leino was born as Armas Einar Leopold Lönnbohm in Paltamo and was the seventh and youngest son in a family of ten children. Leino's father had transferred his surname from Mustonen to Lönnbohm to advance in his career.

Leino published his first poem at 12 and, by age 18, a collection of poems as well,Maaliskuun lauluja.

Writing career

Early in his career Eino Leino was much loved and praised by the critics. He joined literary and newspaper circles and became a member of the Young Finnish circle. Among Leino's friends were the artist Pekka Halonen and Otto Manninen, who gained fame as a poet and translator.

After the Finnish Civil War, Leino's idealistic faith for national unity collapsed, and his influence as a journalist and polemicist weakened. He was granted a State writer's pension in 1918 at the age of forty. Although publishing prolifically, he had financial problems and his health deteriorated. "Life is always a struggle with eternal forces," Leino said in a letter in 1925 to his friend Bertel Gripenberg.

Leino published over 70 books of poems and stories. The most famous of these are the two poem collections Helkavirsiä (1903 and 1916), in which he extensively uses Finnish mythology and folklore. In addition, Leino was the first person in Finland to translate Dante's Divine Comedy into Finnish.

Leino was married three times and had one daughter, Helka. He died in 1926 at the age of 47.

Saba Saba Tanzania - Jul 07

Saba Saba Day on July 7 celebrates (among other things) the 1954 founding of the Tanzanian political party, TANU, the Tanganyika African National Union. Saba Saba means "seven seven" in Swahili, the national language of Tanzania (and of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the two countries whose union created the United Republic of Tanzania in 1964). Saba Saba also may refer to the Dar es Salaam International Trade Fair. The fair is held every year at this date [7/7] in Saba Saba grounds near Kurasini in Dar es Salaam.

Running of the Bulls Spain - Jul 07

The Pamplona encierro is the most popular in Spain and has been broadcast live by RTVE, the public Spanish national television channel, for over 30 years. It is the highest profile event of the San Fermin festival, which is held every year from July 6–14. The first bull running is on July 7, followed by one on each of the following mornings of the festival, beginning every day at 8 am. Among the rules to take part in the event are that participants must be at least 18 years old, run in the same direction as the bulls, not incite the bulls, and not be under the influence of alcohol.

Death of El Cid Spain - Jul 10

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (1043 – July 10, 1099), known as El Cid Campeador, "The lord-master of military arts"), was a Castilian nobleman, military leader, and diplomat.

Exiled from the court of the Spanish EmperorAlfonso VI of León and Castile, El Cid went on to command a Moorish force consisting ofMuladis, Berbers, Arabs and Malians, under Yusuf al-Mu'taman ibn Hud, Moorish king of the northeast Al-Andalus city of Zaragoza, and his successor, Al-Mustein II. After the Christian defeat at the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086, El Cid was recalled to service by Alfonso VI, and commanded a combined Christian and Moorish army, which he used to create his own fiefdom in the Moorish Mediterranean coastal city of Valencia.

Rodrigo Díaz was educated in the royal court of Castile and became the alférez, the chief general, of Alfonso VI, and his most valuable asset in the fight against the Moors.

He was the subject of the oldest extant Spanish epic poem Cantar de Mio Cid.

Death

El Cid and his wife Jimena Díaz lived peacefully in Valencia for five years until the Almoravids besieged the city. El Cid died June 10, 1099. The cause of death is commonly accepted to be a combination of sorrow for the loss of his only son in 1098, and the increasing impact of the siege on famine and living standards more generally. Valencia was captured by Masdali on May 5, 1102 and it did not become a Christian city again for over 125 years. Jimena fled to Burgos, Castile, in 1101. She rode in with her retinue and the body of El Cid. Originally buried in Castile in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, his body now lies at the center of the Burgos Cathedral.

After his demise, but still during the siege of Valencia, legend holds that Jimena ordered that the corpse of El Cid be fitted with his armor and set atop his horse Babieca, to bolster the morale of his troops. In several variations of the story, the dead Rodrigo and his knights win a thundering charge against Valencia's besiegers, resulting in a war-islost-but-battle-is-won catharsis for generations of Christian Spaniards to follow. It is believed that the legend originated shortly after Jimena entered Burgos, and that it is derived from the manner in which Jimena's procession rode into Burgos, i.e. alongside her deceased husband.

Independence Day Solomon Islands - Jul 07

Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). The capital, Honiara, is located on the island ofGuadalcanal. The nation of the Solomon Islands is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

The Solomon Islands are believed to have been inhabited by Melanesian people for many thousands of years. Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to arrive in Solomon Islands in 1568 and named them Islas Salomón. The United Kingdom established a protectorate over the Solomon Islands in 1893.

In the Second World War there was fierce fighting between the Americans and the Japanese in the Solomon Islands campaign of 1942–45, including the Battle of Guadalcanal.

Self-government was achieved in 1976 and independence two years later. The Solomon Islands is a constitutional monarchy with the Queen of the Solomon Islands, at present Elizabeth II, as the head of state. Gordon Lilo Darcy is the eleventh and current Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands.

History

It is believed that Papuan-speaking settlers began to arrive around 30,000 BC. Austronesian speakers arrived c.

4000 BC also bringing cultural elements such as the outrigger canoe. It is between 1200 and 800 BC that the ancestors of the Polynesians, the Lapita people, arrived from the Bismarck Archipelago with their characteristic ceramics.

The first European to visit the islands was the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira, coming from Peru in 1568. The people of Solomon Islands were notorious for headhunting and cannibalism before the arrival of the Europeans.

Missionaries began visiting the Solomons in the mid-19th century. They made little progress at first, because "blackbirding" (the often brutal recruitment or kidnapping of labourers for the sugar plantations in Queensland and Fiji) led to a series of reprisals and massacres. The evils of the labour trade prompted the United Kingdom to declare a protectorate over the southern Solomons in June 1893. In 1898 and 1899, more outlying islands were added to the protectorate; in 1900 the remainder of the archipelago, an area previously under German jurisdiction, was transferred to British administration apart from the islands of Buka and Bougainville, which remained under German administration as part of German New Guinea. Traditional trade and social intercourse between the western Solomon Islands of Mono and Alu (the Shortlands) and the traditional societies in the south of Bougainville, however, continued without hindrance.

Under the protectorate, missionaries settled in the Solomons, converting most of the population to Christianity. In the early 20th century, several British and Australian firms began large-scale coconut planting. Economic growth was slow, however, and the islanders benefited little.

In 1908, the islands were visited by Jack London, who was cruising the Pacific Ocean on his boat, the Snark.

Second World War:

With the outbreak of the Second World War, most planters and traders were evacuated to Australia, and most cultivation ceased. Some of the most intense fighting of the war occurred in the Solomons. The most significant of the Allied Forces' operations against the Japanese Imperial Forces was launched on August 7, 1942, with simultaneous naval bombardments and amphibious landings on the Florida Islands at Tulagi and Red Beach on Guadalcanal.

The Battle of Guadalcanal became an important and bloody campaign fought in the Pacific War as the Allies began to repulse Japanese expansion. Of strategic importance during the war were the coastwatchers operating in remote locations, often on Japanese held islands, providing early warning and intelligence of Japanese naval, army and aircraft movements during Solomon Island warriors with spears in orthe campaign. namented war canoe in 1895 Sergeant-Major Jacob Vouza was a notable coastwatcher who after capture refused to divulge Allied information in spite of interrogation and torture by Japanese Imperial forces. He was awarded a Silver Star Medal by the Americans, which is the United States' third-highest decoration for valor in combat. Islanders Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana would be noted by National Geographic for being the first to find the shipwrecked John F. Kennedy and his crew of the PT-109. They suggested using a coconut to write a rescue message for delivery by dugout canoe, which was later kept on his desk when he became the president of the United States.

The Solomon Islands was one of the major staging areas of the South Pacific and was home to the famous VMF214 "Black Sheep" Squadron commanded by Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington. The Slot was a name for New Georgia Sound, when it was used by the Tokyo Express to supply the Japanese garrison on Guadalcanal. Of more than 36,000 Japanese on Guadalcanal, about 26,000 were killed or missing, 9,000 died of disease, and 1,000 were captured.

Independence:

Local councils were established in the 1950s as the islands stabilised from the aftermath of the Second World War. A new constitution was established in 1970 and elections were held, although the constitution was contested and a new one was created in 1974. In 1973 the first oil price shock occurred, and the increased cost of running a colony became apparent to British administrators.

Following the independence of neighbouring Papua New Guinea from Australia in 1975, the Solomon Islands gained self government in 1976. Independence was granted on 7 July 1978. The first Prime Minister was Sir Peter Kenilorea, and the Solomon Islands retained the Monarchy.

Civil War:

Commonly referred to as the tensions or the ethnic tension, the initial civil unrest was mainly characterised by fighting between theIsatabu Freedom Movement (also known as the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army) and the Malaita Eagle Force (as well as the Marau Eagle Force). (Although much of the conflict was between Guales and Malaitans, Kabutaulaka (2001) and Dinnen (2002) argue that the 'ethnic conflict' label is an oversimplification.

In late 1998, militants on the island of Guadalcanal commenced and had a campaign of intimidation and violence towards Malaitan settlers. During the next year, thousands of Malaitans fled back to Malaita or to the capital, Honiara (which, although situated on Guadalcanal, is predominantly populated by Malaitans US marines rest in the field during the and Solomon Islanders from other provinces). In 1999, Guadalcanal Campaign in 1942 the Malaita Eagle Force(MEF) was established in response.

The reformist government of Bartholomew Ulufa'alu struggled to respond to the complexities of this evolving conflict.

In late 1999, the government declared a four month state of emergency. There were also a number of attempts at reconciliation ceremonies but to no avail. He also requested assistance from Australia and New Zealand in 1999 but this was rejected.

In June 2000, Ulufa'alu was kidnapped by militia members of the MEF who felt that although he was a Malaitan, he was not doing enough to protect their interests. Ulufa'alu subsequently resigned in exchange for his release. Manasseh Sogavare, who had earlier been Finance Minister in Ulufa'alu's government but had subsequently joined the opposition, was elected as Prime Minister by 23–21 over Rev. Leslie Boseto. However Sogavare's election was immediately shrouded in controversy because six MPs (thought to be supporters of Boseto) were unable to attend parliament for the crucial vote (Moore 2004, n.5 on p. 174).

In October 2000, the Townsville Peace Agreement, was signed by the Malaita Eagle Force, elements of the IFM and the Solomon Islands Government. This was closely followed by the Marau Peace agreement in February 2001, signed by the Marau Eagle Force, the Isatabu Freedom Movement, the Guadalcanal Provincial Government and the Solomon Islands Government. However, a key Guale militant leader, Harold Keke, refused to sign the Agreement, causing a split with the Guale groups. Subsequently, Guale signatories to the Agreement led by Andrew Te'e joined with the Malaitan-dominated police to form the 'Joint Operations Force'. During the next two years the conflict moved to the Weathercoast of Guadalcanal as the Joint Operations unsuccessfully attempted to capture Keke and his group.

New elections in December 2001 brought Sir Allan Kemakeza into the Prime Minister's chair with the support of his People's Alliance Party and also the Association of Independent Members. Law and order deteriorated as the nature of the conflict shifted: there was continuing violence on the Weathercoast while militants in Honiara increasingly turned their attention to crime and extortion. The Department of Finance would often be surrounded by armed men when funding was due to arrive. In December 2002, Finance Minister Laurie Chan resigned after being forced at gunpoint to sign a cheque made out to some of the militants. Conflict also broke out in Western Province between locals and Malaitan settlers. Renegade members of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) were invited in as a protection force but ended up causing as much trouble as they prevented.

The prevailing atmosphere of lawlessness, widespread extortion and ineffective police prompted a formal request by the Solomon Islands Government for outside help. With the country bankrupt and the capital in chaos, the request was unanimously supported in Parliament.

In July 2003, Australian and Pacific Island police and troops arrived in the Solomon Islands under the auspices of the Australian-ledRegional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). A sizable international security contingent of 2,200 police and troops, led by Australia and New Zealand, and with representatives from about 20 other Pacific nations began arriving the next month under Operation Helpem Fren. Since this time some commentators have considered the country a failed state. However, other academics argue that rather than being a 'failed state', it is an unformed state: a state that never consolidated after decades since independence.

In April 2006, allegations that the newly elected Prime Minister Snyder Rini had used bribes from Chinese businessmen to buy the votes of members of Parliament led to mass rioting in the capital Honiara. A deep underlying resentment against the minority Chinese business community led to much of Chinatown in the city being destroyed.

Tensions had also been increased by the belief that large sums of money were being exported to China. China sent chartered aircraft to evacuate hundreds of Chinese who fled to avoid the riots. Evacuation of Australian and British citizens was on a much smaller scale. Further Australian, New Zealand and Fijian police and troops were dispatched to try to quell the unrest. Rini eventually resigned before facing a motion of no-confidence in Parliament, and Parliament elected Manasseh Sogavare as Prime Minister.

2007 earthquake and tsunami:

On 2 April 2007, the Solomon Islands were struck by a major earthquake followed by a large tsunami. Initial reports indicated that the tsunami, which mainly affected the small island of Gizo, was several metres high (perhaps as high as 10 metres (33 ft) according to some reports, 5 metres (16 1/3 ft) according to the Foreign Office). The tsunami was triggered by an 8.1 magnitude earthquake, with a hypocenter 349 kilometres (217 miles) northwest of the island's capital, Honiara, at Lat −8.453 Long 156.957 and at a depth of 10 kilometres (6.2 miles).

According to the United States Geological Survey the earthquake struck at 20:39:56 UTC on Sunday, 1 April 2007.

Since the initial event and up until 22:00:00 UTC on Wednesday, 4 April 2007, more than 44 aftershocks of a magnitude of 5.0 or greater were recorded in the region.

The death toll from the resulting tsunami was at least 52 people, and the tsunami destroyed more than 900 homes and has left thousands of people homeless.

Land thrust from the quake has extended out from the shoreline of one island, Ranongga, by up to 70 metres (230 ft) according to local residents. This has left many once pristine coral reefs exposed on the newly formed beaches.

Constitution Day Palau - Jul 09

Palau adopted its constitution in 1981 and establish a government based on the goveernment of the USA. Since 1359, 137 Presidents have governed Palau.

History

Palau was settled by people who landed there for over 3000 years.

During the 15th century, Spain took dominion over the land and took the land under their control. In 1977, democracy was restored to Palau.

The Republic of Palau is a scattered group of islands in the westernmost part of Micronesia. The country’s territory includes some 340 islands east of the Philippines that stretch out over an area 125 miles in length. The total land area of the islands is 170 square miles. Babeldaob, the largest island, covers 153 square miles.

With the entry into force of the Compact of Free Association with the United States. Palau was the last Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands territories to gain its independence. Under the Compact, the U.S. will remain responsible for Palau’s defense for 50 years. Otherwise, Palau is a sovereign nation and conducts its own foreign relations. Since independence, Palau has established diplomatic relations with a number of nations, including many of its Pacific neighbors. Palau was admitted to the United Nations on December 15, 1994, and has since joined several other international organizations.

Celebrations

The Palau Arts Festival falls on July 9, Constitution Day. Palau is a country rich in tradition and culture. Today, many sites of cultural or historical importance remain intact, reminding modern Palauans of a past long ago, while reinforcing the culture and tradition for future generations.

Probably the most noticeable aspect of Palauan culture is the people’s connection with the sea. Traditionally, it was the duty of the family to go to sea to harvest fish and battle against enemy villages. As the sea was the source of their livelihood, men developed a close relationship with the waters of Palau, becoming versant in the currents and the phases of the moon and the behavior of the fish they sought to put on the table.

Palauans are a highly sociable people. Traditionally, history, lore and knowledge were passed down through the generations orally as there was no written language until the late 1800′s. Palauans still practice that traditional method, and at the end of the day, one can often find pockets of Palauans excitingly engaged in the telling of the stories of the more recent past.

HM Hassan II's Birthday Morocco - Jul 09

HM King Hassan II (Arabic: ‫يناثلا نسحلا‬‎, class. pron. (a)l-ḥasan aṯṯānī, dial. (Mar.) el-ḥasan ett(s)âni); July 9, 1929 – July 23, 1999) was King of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999. He was the eldest son of Mohammed V, Sultan, then King of Morocco (1909–1961) and his wife Lalla Abla bint Tahar (1909–1992).

Biography

Youth and education:

King Hassan was educated at the Imperial College at Rabat and earned a law degree from the University of Bordeaux.

He was exiled to Corsica by French authorities on 20 August 1953, together with his father Sultan Mohammed V. They were transferred to Madagascar in January 1954. Prince Moulay Hassan acted as his father's political advisor during the exile. Mohammed V and his family returned from exile on 16 November 1955.

Prince Moulay Hassan participated in the February 1956 negotiations for Morocco's independence with his father, who later appointed him Chief of Staff of the newly founded Royal Armed Forces in April 1956. In the unrest of the same year, he led army contingents battling rebels in the mountains of the Rif. Mohammed V changed the title of the Moroccan sovereign from Sultan to King in 1957. Hassan was proclaimed Crown Prince on 19 July 1957, and became King on 26 February 1961, after his father's death. U.S. Ambassador Charles W. Yost saw King Mohammed V hours before his death and was among those who suspected that Hassan II had a hand in his father's sudden death.

Rule:

Hassan's conservative rule, one characterized by a poor human rights record,strengthened the Alaouite dynasty. In Morocco's first constitution of 1963, Hassan II reaffirmed Morocco's choice of a multi-party political system, the only one in the Maghreb. The constitution gave the King large powers he eventually used to strengthen his rule, which provoked strong political protest from the UNFP and the Istiqlal parties that formed the backbone of the opposition.

In 1965, Hassan dissolved Parliament and ruled directly, although he did not abolish the mechanisms of parliamentary democracy. When elections were eventually held, they were mostly rigged in favor of loyal parties. This caused severe discontent among the opposition, and protest demonstrations and riots challenged the King's rule.

In the early 1970s, King Hassan survived two assassination attempts. The first, in 1971, was coup d'état attempt allegedly supported byLibya, organized by General Madbouh and Colonel Ababou and carried out by cadets during a function at the King's summer palace inRabat during his forty-second birthday party. Important guests, including the Belgian Ambassador Marcel Dupert, were placed underhouse arrest, and the King himself was taken to a small pavilion. Rabat's main radio station was taken over by the rebels and broadcastpropaganda stating that the King had been murdered and a republic founded. The coup ended the same day when royalist troops took over the palace in combat against the rebels.

On August 16, 1972, during a second attempt, four F-5 military jets from the Royal Moroccan Air Force fired upon the King's Boeing 727while he was traveling back to Rabat from France, many bullets hit the fuselage but they failed to bring the plane down. Eight people were killed when the jets strafed the awaiting reception dignitaries.

General Mohamed Oufkir, Morocco's defense minister, was the man behind the coup and was officially declared to have committed suicide after the attack. His body, however, was found with several bullet wounds.

In the Cold War era, Hassan II allied Morocco with the West generally, and with the United States in particular. There were close and continuing ties between Hassan II's government and the CIA, who helped to reorganize Morocco's security forces in 1960. Hassan served as a back channel between the Arab world and Israel, facilitating early negotiations between them. This was made possible due to the presence in Israel of a large Moroccan Jewish community.

During his reign, Morocco recovered the Spanish-controlled area of Ifni in 1969, and military seized two thirds of Spanish Sahara (now Western Sahara) through the "Green March" in 1975. The latter issue continues to dominate Moroccan foreign policy to this day. Relations withAlgeria have deteriorated sharply due to the Western Sahara affair, as well as due to Moroccan claims on Algerian territory (Tindouf and Bechar), which unleashed the brief 1963 Sand War. Relations with Mauritania were tense too, as Morocco only recognized it as a sovereign country in 1969, nearly a decade after Mauritania's independence, because of Moroccan claims on the country (see Great Morocco).

Economically, Hassan II adopted a market-based economy, where agriculture, tourism, andphosphates mining industries played a major role.

The period from the 1960s to the late 1980s was labelled as the "years of lead" and saw thousands of dissidents jailed, killed, exiled or forcibly disappeared.

King Hassan II had extended many parliamentary functions by the early 1990s and released hundreds of political prisoners in 1991, and allowed the Alternance, where the opposition assumed power, for the first time in the Arab World. He set up a Royal Council for Human Rights to look into allegations of abuse by the State.

Death:

Hassan died of natural causes in his birth town at the age of 70 on 23 July 1999. A national funeral service was held for him in at Rabat, Morocco, with some 40 heads of state in attendance. He was buried in the Mausoleum of Mohammed V in Rabat. The coffin of King Hassan II, carried by King Mohamed VI, his brother Prince Moulay Rachid and his cousin Moulay Hicham, was covered with a green fabric, in which the first prayer of Islam, "There is no god but Allah", is inscribed in golden letters.

Independence Day Argentina - J u l 0 9

What today is commonly referred as the Independence of Argentina was declared on July 9, 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán. In reality, the congressmen that were assembled in Tucumán declared the independence of the United Provinces of South America, which is still today one of the legal names of the Argentine Republic. The Federal League Provinces, at war with the United Provinces, were not allowed into the Congress. At the same time, several provinces from the Upper Peru that would later become part of present-day Bolivia, were represented at the Congress.

Causes

The 1810 May Revolution followed the deposition of the Spanish king Ferdinand VII by the Napoleonic French. The revolution ended the authority of the Viceroy Cisneros and replaced it with the Primera Junta.

When the Spanish monarchy resumed its functions in 1819, Spain was determined to recover control over its colonies in the Americas. Moreover, the royalists from Peru had been victorious at the battles of Sipe-Sipe, Huaqui, Vilcapugio and Ayohuma, in Upper Peru, and seriously threatened the United Provinces from the north.

On April 15, 1815, a revolution ended the mandate of Carlos María de Alvear as Supreme Director and demanded that a General Congress be summoned. Delegate deputies, each representing 14,000 inhabitants, were sent from all the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata to the sessions, which started on March 24, 1816. However, the Federal League Provinces did not send delegates: the Argentine littoral Provinces (Santa Fé, Entre Ríos, Corrientes and Misiones), and the Eastern Province (modern-day Uruguay).

Independence Day Bahamas - Jul 10

The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a country consisting of more than 3,000 islands, cays, and islets. It is located in theAtlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States (nearest to the state ofFlorida). Its land area is 13,939 km2 (5,382 sq mi), with a population of 353,658. Its capital is Nassau. Geographically, the Bahamas lie in the same island chain as Cuba, Hispaniola and the Turks and Caicos Islands; the designation of Bahamas refers normally to the Commonwealth and not the geographic chain.

Originally inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakanspeaking Taino people, the Bahamas were the site of Columbus' first landfall in the New World in 1492. Although the Spanish never colonized the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 to 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera.

The Bahamas became a Crown Colony in 1718 when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American War of Independence, thousands of American Loyalists and enslaved Africans moved to the Bahamas and set up a plantation economy. The slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1807 and many Africans liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy were settled in the Bahamas during the 19th century. Slavery itself was abolished in 1834 and the descendants form the majority of the Bahamas's population today.

In terms of GDP per capita, the Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Western Hemisphere (following the United States and Canada).

History

Taino people moved into the uninhabited southern Bahamas from Hispaniola andCuba around the 11th century AD. These people came to be known as theLucayans. There were an estimated 30,000+ Lucayans at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492. Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the New World was on an island named San Salvador (known to the Lucayans as Guanahani), which some researchers believe to be present-day San Salvador Island, (also known as Watling's Island) in the southeastern Bahamas.

An alternative theory holds that Columbus landed to the southeast on Samana Cay, according to calculations made in 1986 by National Geographic writer and editor Joseph Judge based on Columbus's log. Evidence in support of this remains inconclusive. On the landfall island, Columbus made first contact with the Lucayans and exchanged goods with them.

The Lucayans throughout the Bahamas were wiped out as a result of Spanish forced migration of the population to Hispaniola for use as forced labour there, and exposure to diseases to which they had no immunity. The smallpox that ravaged the Taino Indians after Columbus's arrival wiped out half of the population in what is now The Bahamas.

It is generally assumed that the islands were uninhabited by Europeans until the mid-17th century. However, recent research suggests that there may have been attempts to settle the islands by groups from Spain, France, and Britain, as well as by other Amerindians. In 1648, the Eleutherian Adventurers migrated from Bermuda. These English Puritans established the first permanent European settlement on an island which they named Eleuthera—the name derives from the Greek word for freedom. They later settled New Providence, naming it Sayle's Island after one of their leaders.

To survive, the settlers resorted to salvaged goods from wrecks.

In 1670 King Charles II granted the islands to the Lords Proprietors of the Carolinas, who rented the islands from the king with rights of trading, tax, appointing governors, and administering the country. In 1684 Spain's corsair Juan de Alcon raided the capital, Charles Town (later renamed Nassau), and in 1703 a joint Franco-Spanish expedition briefly occupied the Bahamian capital during the War of the Spanish Succession.

18th century:

During proprietary rule, the Bahamas became a haven for pirates, including the infamous Blackbeard. To restore orderly government, The Bahamas were made a British crown colony in 1718 under the royal governorship of Woodes Rogers, who, after a difficult struggle, succeeded in suppressing piracy. In 1720, Rogers led local militia to drive off a Spanish attack.

During the American War of Independence, the islands were a target for American naval forces under the command of CommodoreEzekial Hopkins. The capital of Nassau on the island of New Providence was occupied by US Marines for a fortnight.

In 1782, following the British defeat at Yorktown, a Spanish fleet appeared off the coast of Nassau, and the city surrendered without a fight.

After American independence, some 7,300 Loyalists and their slaves moved to the Bahamas from New York, Florida, and the Carolinas. These Loyalists established plantations on several islands and became a political force in the capital. The small population became mostly African from this point on.

The British abolished the slave trade in 1807, which led to the forced settlement on Bahamian islands of thousands of Africans liberated from slave ships by the Royal Navy. Slavery itself was finally abolished in the British Empire on August 1, 1834.

20th century:

Modern political development began after the Second World War. The first political parties were formed in the 1950s and the British made the islands internally self-governing in 1964, with Sir Roland Symonette of the United Bahamian Party as the first premier.

The fourth James Bond film Thunderball was partly filmed in 1965 in Nassau.

In 1967, Sir Lynden Pindling of the Progressive Liberal Party became the first black premier of the colony, and in 1968 the title was changed to prime minister. In 1973, The Bahamas became fully independent, but retained membership in the Commonwealth of Nations. Sir Milo Butler was appointed the first Bahamian governor-general (the representative of Queen Elizabeth II) shortly after independence.

Based on the twin pillars of tourism and offshore finance, the Bahamian economy has prospered since the 1950s.

However, there remain significant challenges in areas such as education, health care, housing, international narcotics trafficking and illegal immigration from Haiti.

The College of The Bahamas is the national higher education/tertiary system. Offering baccalaureate, masters and associate degrees, COB has three campuses and teaching and research centres throughout The Bahamas. The College is in the process of becoming The University of The Bahamas as early as 2012.

Battle of Boyne - Jul 12 Canada, Ireland, U.K.

The Battle of the Boyne (Irish: Cath na Bóinne, IPA: was fought in 1690 between two rival claimants of the English, Scottish, and Irish thrones – the Catholic King James and the Protestant King William (who had deposed James in 1688) – across the River Boyne near Drogheda on the east coast of Ireland. The battle, won by William, was a turning point in James' unsuccessful attempt to regain the crown and ultimately helped ensure the continuation of Protestant supremacy in Ireland. Ironically, some contemporary historians have speculated that William's campaign may have been funded, at least in part, by Pope Alexander VIII as part of a shared hostility with William to Louis XIV of France, who at the time was attempting to establish dominance in Europe and to whom James was an ally.

The battle took place on 1 July 1690 in the "old style" (Julian) calendar. This was equivalent to 11 July in the "new style" (Gregorian) calendar, although today its commemoration is held on 12 July. William's forces defeated James' army of mostly raw recruits. The symbolic importance of this battle has made it one of the best-known battles in British–Irish history and it is a key part of the folklore for the Orange Order. Its commemoration today is principally by the Orange Institution.

Background

The battle is seen as the decisive encounter in a war that was primarily about James's attempt to regain the thrones of England and Scotland, resulting from The seven immortal gentlemen'sinvitation to William and James' daughter, Mary, to take the throne. It is especially remembered as a crucial moment in the struggle between Irish Protestant and Catholic interests.

In an Irish context, however, the war was a sectarian and ethnic conflict, in many ways a re-run of the Irish Confederate Wars of 50 years earlier. For the Jacobites, the war was fought for Irish sovereignty, religious toleration for Catholicism, and land ownership. The Catholic upper classes had lost almost all their lands after Cromwell's conquest, as well as the right to hold public office, practise their religion, and sit in the Irish Parliament. They saw the Catholic King James as a means of redressing these grievances and securing the autonomy of Ireland from England. To these ends, under Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnel, they had raised an army to restore James after the Glorious Revolution. By 1690, they controlled all of Ireland except for the province of Ulster. Most of James II's troops at the Boyne were Irish Catholics.

Conversely, for the Williamites, the war was about maintaining Protestant and English rule in Ireland. They feared for their lives and their property if James and his Catholic supporters were to rule Ireland. In particular, they dreaded a repeat of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, which had been marked by widespread killings. For these reasons, Protestants fought en masse for William III. Many Williamite troops at the Boyne, including their very effective irregular cavalry, were Protestants from Ulster, who called themselves "Inniskillingers" and were referred to by contemporaries as "ScotsIrish".

Opposing forces Commanders:

The opposing armies in the battle were led by the Roman Catholic King James II of England, Scotland, and Ireland and opposing him, his nephew and sonin-law, the Protestant King William III ("William of Orange") who had deposed James the previous year. James's supporters controlled much of Ireland and the Irish Parliament. James also enjoyed the support of his cousin, Louis XIV, who did not want to see a hostile monarch on the throne of England. Louis sent 6,000 French troops to Ireland to support the Irish Jacobites. William was alreadyStadtholder of the Netherlands and was able to call on Dutch and allied troops from Europe as well as England and Scotland.

James was a seasoned officer who had proven his bravery when fighting for his brother — King Charles II — in Europe, notably at the Battle of the Dunes (1658). However, recent historians have noted that he was prone to panicking under pressure and making rash decisions, possibly due to the onset of the dementia which would overtake him completely in later years. William, although a seasoned commander was hardly one of history's great generals and had yet to win a major battle. Many of his battles ended in stalemates, prompting at least one modern historian to argue that William lacked an ability to manage armies in the thick of conflict. William's success against the French had been reliant upon tactical manoeuvres and good diplomacy rather than force. His diplomacy had assembled the League of Augsburg, a multi-national coalition formed to resist French aggression in Europe. From William's point William III ("William of Orof view, his takeover of power in England and the ensuing campaign in Ireland ange") was just another front in the war against King Louis XIV. King of England, Scotland James II's subordinate commanders were Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrcon- and Ireland, Stadtholder in nell, who was Lord Deputy of Ireland and James's most powerful supporter in the Netherlands Ireland; and the French general Lauzun. William's second-in-command was the Duke of Schomberg, a 75-year-old professional soldier. Born in Heidelberg, Germany, Schomberg had formerly been a Marshal of France, but, being a Huguenot, was compelled to leave France in 1685 because of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Armies:

The Williamite army at the Boyne was about 36,000 strong, composed of troops from many countries. Around 20,000 troops had been in Ireland since 1689, commanded by Schomberg. William himself arrived with another 16,000 in June 1690. William's troops were generally far better trained and equipped than James's. The best Williamite infantry were from Denmark and the Netherlands, professional soldiers equipped with the latest flintlock muskets. There was also a large contingent of French Huguenot troops fighting with the Williamites. William did not have a high opinion of his English and Scottish troops, with the exception of the Ulster Protestant irregulars who had held Ulster in the previous year. The English and Scottish troops were felt to be politically unreliable, since James had been their legitimate monarch up to a year before. Moreover, they had only been raised recently and had seen little battle action.

The Jacobites were 23,500 strong. James had several regiments of French troops, but most of his manpower was provided by Irish Catholics. The Jacobites' Irish cavalry, who were recruited from among the dispossessed Irish gentry, proved themselves to be high calibre troops during the course of the battle. However, the Irish infantry, predominantly peasants who had been pressed into service, were not trained soldiers. They had been hastily trained, poorly equipped, and only a minority of them had functional muskets. In fact, some of them carried only farm implements such as scythes at the Boyne. On top of that, the Jacobite infantry who actually had firearms were all equipped with the obsolete matchlock musket.

The battle

William had landed in Carrickfergus in Ulster on 14 June 1690 and marched south to take Dublin. James chose to place his line of defence on the River Boyne, around 30 miles (48 km) from Dublin. The Williamites reached the Boyne on 29 June. The day before the battle, William himself had a narrow escape when he was wounded in the shoulder by Jacobite artillery while surveying the fords over which his troops would cross the Boyne.

The battle itself was fought on 1 July for control of a ford on the Boyne near Drogheda, about 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) NW of the hamlet of Oldbridge (and about 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) WNW of the modern Boyne River Bridge).

William sent about a quarter of his men to cross the river at Roughgrange, about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) west of Donore and about 6 miles (9.7 km) SW of Oldbridge. The Duke of Schomberg's son, Meinhardt, led this crossing, which Irish dragoons in picquet under Neil O'Neill unsuccessfully opposed. James, an inexperienced general, thought that he might be outflanked and sent half his troops, along with most of his artillery, to counter this move. What neither side had realized was that there was a deep, swampy ravine at Roughgrange.

Because of this ravine, the opposing forces there could not engage each other, but literally sat out the battle. The Williamite forces went on a long detour march which, later in the day, almost saw them cut off the Jacobite retreat at the village of Naul.

At the main ford near Oldbridge, William's infantry led by the elite Dutch Blue Guards forced their way across the river, using their superior firepower to slowly drive back the enemy foot-soldiers, but were pinned down when the James VII and II Jacobite cavalry counter-attacked. Having secured the village of Oldbridge, some Williamite infantry tried to hold off successive cavalry attacks with disci- Deposed King of England, plined volley fire, but were scattered and driven into the river, with the excep- Scotland and Ireland, by tion of the Blue Guards. William's second-in-command, the Duke of Godfrey Kneller, 1684 Schomberg, and George Walker were killed in this phase of the battle. The Williamites were not able to resume their advance until their own horsemen managed to cross the river and, after being badly mauled, managed to hold off the Jacobite cavalry until they retired and regrouped at Donore, where they once again put up stiff resistance before retiring.

The Jacobites retired in good order. William had a chance to trap them as they retreated across the River Nanny at Duleek, but his troops were held up by a successful rear-guard action.

The casualty figures of the battle were quite low for a battle of such a scale—of the 50,000 or so participants, about 2,000 died. Although three-quarters of them were Jacobites, William's army had far more wounded. At the time most of the casualties of battles tended to be inflicted in the pursuit of an already-beaten enemy; this did not happen at the Boyne, as the counter-attacks of the skilled Jacobite cavalry screened the retreat of the rest of their army. The Jacobites were badly demoralised by the order to retreat, which lost them the battle. Many of the Irish infantrymen deserted.

The Williamites triumphantly marched into Dublin two days after the battle. The Jacobite army abandoned the city and marched to Limerick, behind the River Shannon, where they were unsuccessfully besieged.

After his defeat James did not stay in Dublin, but rode with a small escort to Duncannon and returned to exile in France, even though his army left the field relatively unscathed. James's loss of nerve and speedy exit from the battlefield enraged his Irish supporters, who fought on until the Treaty of Limerick in 1691; he was derisively nicknamed Seamus a' chaca ("James the shit") in Irish.

Aftermath

The battle was overshadowed in its time in England by the defeat of an Anglo-Dutch fleet by the French two days later at the Battle of Beachy Head, a far more serious event in the short term; only on the continent was the Boyne treated as an important victory. Its importance lay in the fact that it was the first proper victory for the League of Augsburg, the first-ever alliance between the Vatican and Protestant countries. Thus the victory motivated more nations to join the alliance and in effect ended the fear of a French conquest of Europe.

The Boyne was not without strategic significance for both England and Ireland, however. It marked the end of James's hope of regaining his throne by military means and probably assured the triumph of the Glorious Revolution. In Scotland, news of this defeat silenced Battle of the Boyne between James theHighlanders in supporting the Jacobite Rising temporarily, which II and William III, 11 July 1690, Jan Bonnie Dundee had led. In Ireland, the Boyne fully assured the Jacobites of how they could successfully resist William. But it was a van Huchtenburg. general victory for William, and is still celebrated by the ProtestantOrange Order on the Twelfth of July.

The treaty of Limerick was written first and was very generous to Catholics, because they were an incredible annoyance to the throne. It allowed most land owners to keep their land so long as they swore allegiance to William of Orange. It also said that James could take a certain number of his soldiers and go back to France. However, Protestants in England were annoyed with this kind treatment towards the Catholics, especially when they were gaining strength and money. Because of this, the penal laws were introduced. These laws included banning Catholics from owning weapons, reducing their land, and prohibiting them from working in the legal profession.

of the battle Commemoration Originally, Irish Protestants commemorated the Battle of Aughrim on 12 July (old style, equivalent to 23 July new style),

symbolising their victory in the Williamite war in Ireland. At Aughrim, which took place a year after the Boyne, the Jacobite army was destroyed, deciding the war in the Williamites' favour. The Boyne, which in the old Julian calendar, took place on 1 July, was treated as less important, third after Aughrim and the anniversary of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 on 23 October. What was celebrated on "The Twelfth" was not William's "victory over Popery at the Battle of the Boyne", but the extermination of the elite of the Catholic Irish at Aughrim, thereby ending the fear of having to surrender the planted lands.

In 1752, the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Ireland, which erroneously placed the Boyne on 12 July instead of Aughrim (the correct equivalent date was 11 July, as the difference between the calendars for the year in question, 1690, was not 11 days but only 10 days). However, even after this date, "The Twelfth" still commemorated Aughrim.

But after the Orange Order was founded in 1795 amid sectarian violence in Armagh, the focus of parades on 12 July switched to the Battle of the Boyne. Usually the dates before the introduction of the calendar on 14 September 1752 are mapped in English language histories directly onto the Julian dates without shifting them by 10 or 11 days. Being suspicious of anything with Papist connotations, however, rather than shift the anniversary of the Boyne to the new 1 July or celebrate the new anniversary of Aughrim, the Orangemen continued to march on 12 July which was (erroneously) thought to have marked the battle of the Boyne in New Style dates. Despite this, there are also smaller parades and demonstrations on 1 July, the date which maps the old style date of the Boyne to the new style in the usual manner and which also commemorate the heavy losses of the 36th (Ulster) Division on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. The memory of the battle also has resonance among Irish nationalists. Most Irish people see the battle as a major step on the road to the complete British colonisation of Ireland. In 1923, IRA members blew up a large monument to the battle on the battlefield site on the Boyne and destroyed a statue of William III in 1929 that stood outside Trinity College, Dublin in the centre of the Irish capital.

"The Twelfth" in Great Britain and Ireland today:

The Battle of the Boyne remains a controversial topic today, especially in Northern Ireland, where some Protestants remember it as the great victory over Catholics that resulted in the sovereignty of Parliament and the Protestant monarchy.

In recent decades, "The Twelfth" has often been marked by confrontations, as members of the Orange Order attempt to celebrate the date by marching past or through what they see as their traditional route. Some of these areas, however, now have a nationalist majority who object to marches passing through what they see as their areas. This change is mainly due to natural population migrations, whereby rural Irish Catholics, who comprise most but not all of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, have moved to major cities to be closer to potential employers.

Each side thus dresses up the disputes in terms of the other's alleged attempts to repress them; Nationalists still see Orange Order marches as provocative attempts to "show who is boss", whilst Unionists insist that they have a right to "walk the Queen's highway" and see any attempt to deny them the right to walk through traditional routes used for centuries as a move to marginalise them and restrict their freedom to celebrate their mainly Protestant identity earned in the Glorious Revolution settlement. Since the start of The Troubles, the celebrations of the battle have been seen as playing a critical role in the awareness of those involved in the unionist/nationalist tensions in Northern Ireland.

The battlefield today:

The site of the Battle of the Boyne sprawls over a wide area west of the town of Drogheda. In the County Development Plan for 2000, Meath County Council rezoned the land at the eastern edge of Oldbridge, at the site of the main Williamite crossing, to residential status. A subsequent planning application for a development of over 700 houses was granted by Meath County Council and this was appealed by local historians to An Bord Pleanala. In March 2008 after an extremely long appeal process, An Bord Pleanala approved permission for this development to proceed. However, due to the current economic climate in Ireland, no work has yet started on this development.

The current Interpretive Centre dedicated to informing tourists and other visitors about the battle is about 1-mile (1.6 km) to the west of the main crossing point. This facility was redeveloped in 2008 and is now open for tourists. The battle's other main combat areas (at Duleek, Donore and Plattin – along the Jacobite line of retreat) are marked with tourist information signs.

On 4 April 2007 in a sign of improving relations between unionist and nationalist groups, the newly-elected First Minister of Northern Ireland, the Reverend Ian Paisley, was invited to visit the battle site by the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern later in the year. Following the invitation, Paisley commented that "such a visit would help to demonstrate how far we have come when we can celebrate and learn from the past so the next generation more clearly understands." On 10 May the visit took place, and Paisley presented the Taoiseach with a Jacobite musket in return for Ahern's gift at the St Andrews talks of a walnut bowl made from a tree from the site. A new tree was also planted in the grounds of Oldbridge House by the two politicians to mark the occasion.

Independence Day Kiribati - Jul 12

Development The Congress was inaugurated in the city of Tucumán, with 33 deputies.

The presidency of the Congress would be rotated monthly. Because the Congress had the freedom to choose topics to debate, endless discussions ensued.

The voting finally ended on July 9 with a declaration of independence.

The Declaration pointed to the circumstances in Europe of the past six years—the removal of the King of Spain by the Napoleon and the subsequent refusal of Ferdinand VII to accept constitutional rule both in the Peninsula and overseas. The Document claimed that Spanish America recovered its sovereignty from the Crown of Castile in 1808, when Ferdinand VII had been deposed, and therefore, any union between the overseas dominions of Spain and the Peninsula had been dissolved. This was a legal concept that was also invoked by the other Spanish American declarations of independence, such as Venezuela's (1811) and Mexico's (1810), which were responding to the same events. The president of the Congress at the time was Francisco Narciso de Laprida, delegate fromSan Juan Province. Subsequent discussions centered on what form of government the emerging state should adopt.

The congress continued its work in Buenos Aires in 1817, but it dissolved in 1820 after the Battle of Cepeda, which deepened the differences between the Unitarian Party, who favored a strong central government, and The Libertator, José de San the Federales, who favored a weak central government.

The house where the declaration was adopted has been rebuilt and is Martín now a museum and monument: the House of Tucumán.

São Paulo State Civil Holiday Brazil - J u l 0 9

The Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932 (sometimes also referred to as Paulista War) is the name given to the uprising of the population of the Brazilian state of São Paulo against the 1930 coup d'état when Getúlio Vargas forcibly assumed the nation's Presidency; Vargas was supported by the military and the political elites of Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and Paraíba.

The movement grew out of local resentment from the fact that Vargas ruled by decree, unbound by a Constitution, in a provisional government. The 1930 coup also affected São Paulo by eroding the autonomy that states enjoyed during the term of the 1891 Constitution and preventing the inauguration of the governor of São Paulo Júlio Prestes in the Presidency of the Republic, while simultaneously overthrowing President Washington Luís, who was governor of São Paulo from 1920 to 1924. These events marked the end of the Old Republic. Vargas appointed governor of Sao Paulo a northeastern.

The Revolution's main goal was to press the provisional government headed by Getúlio Vargas to abide by a new Constitution, since the elected President Prestes was kept from taking office. However, as the movement developed and resentment against President Vargas and his revolutionary government grew deeper, it came to advocate the overthrow of the Federal Government, and it was even speculated that one of the Revolutionaries' goals was the secession of São Paulo from the Brazilian federation. However, it is noted that the separatist scenario was used as guerrilla tactics by the Federal Government to turn the population of the rest of the country against the state of São Paulo, broadcasting the alleged separatist notion throughout the country. There is no evidence that the movement's commanders sought separatism.

The uprising commenced on 9 July 1932, after four protesting students were killed by government troops on 23 May 1932. On the wake of their deaths, a movement called MMDC (from the initials of the names of each of the four students killed, Martins, Miragaia, Dráusio and Camargo) started. A fifth victim, Alvarenga, was also shot that night, but died months later.

In a few months, the state of São Paulo rebelled against the federal government. Counting on the solidarity of the political elites of two other powerful states, (Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul), the politicians from São Paulo expected a quick war. However, that solidarity was never translated into actual support, and the São Paulo revolt was militarily crushed on October 2, 1932. In total, there were 87 days of fighting (July 9 to October 4, 1932—with the last two days after the surrender of São Paulo), with a balance of 934 official deaths, though non-official estimates report up to 2,200 dead, and many cities in the state of São Paulo suffered damage due to fighting.

In spite of its military defeat, some of the movement's main demands were finally granted by Vargas afterwards: the appointment of a non-military state Governor, the election of a Constituent Assembly and, finally, the enactment of a new Constitution in 1934. However that Constitution was short-lived, as in 1937, amidst growing extremism on the left and right wings of the political spectrum, Vargas closed the National Congress and enacted another Constitution, which established an authoritarian regime called Estado Novo.

July 9 marks the beginning of the Revolution of 1932, and is a holiday and the most important civic date of the state of São Paulo. The paulistas (as the inhabitants of São Paulo are known) consider the Revolution of 1932 as the greatest movement of its civic history. It was the first major revolt against the government of Getúlio Vargas and the last major armed conflict occurring in the history of Brazil.

For an off-beat look at this revolution by a traveler caught in the middle, see Peter Fleming's book Brazilian Adventure.

World Population Day Worldwide - Jul 11

World Population Day is an annual event, observed on July 11, which seeks to raise awareness of global population issues. The event was established by the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme in 1989. It was inspired by the public interest in Five Billion Day on July 11, 1987, approximately the date on which the world's population reached five billion people.

The world population on the 20th anniversary of Five Billion Day, July 11, 2007, was estimated to have been 6,727,551,263.

Flemish Community Holiday Belgium - Jul 11

The Day of the Flemish Community of Belgium, also known as the Flemish Community Day, is celebrated every year on 11 July in remembrance for the Battle of Golden Spurs or Guldensporenslag and is observed only by the Flemish Community of Belgium.

History In 1302 the French king Philip IV sent an army to punish the Flemish citizens of Bruges, who earlier that year rebelled

against the king and attacked the French governor of Flanders (the so-called Good Friday of Bruges).

The French army was composed of about 2,500 knights and squires, supported by about 5,500 infantry. The Flemish, in contrast, fielded a town militia force of 9,000 consisting solely of infantrymen.

The two forces clashed on July 11 in an open field outside the Flemish city of Kortrijk and the battle ended with the overwhelming victory of the Flemish militia. The commander of the French army, Robert II of Artois was surrounded and killed on the battlefield. At least a thousand French cavaliers were also killed in the battle and the large number of the golden spurs collected from the field gave the battle its name.

The battle was romanticised in 1838 by Flemish writer Hendrik Conscience in his book De Leeuw van Vlaanderen (English: The Lion of Flanders).

Declaration Following the establishment of the three cultural and linguistic communities of Belgium in 1970, the Dutch Cultural

Community (as it was known then) enacted a law on 6 July 1973, which prescribes the flag, the anthem and the day of the Dutch Cultural Community.

Ever since then the Day of the Flemish community is observed in Flanders. Private employers are not required to award a day's holiday; however the institutions of the Flemish Government and public employers observe this holiday.

Orangemen's Day Ireland - J u l 1 2

The Twelfth (also called The Glorious Twelfth or Orangemen's Day) is an Ulster Protestant celebration held on 12 July each year. It originated during the 18th century in Ulster, a province of Ireland that was heavily colonized by Protestant settlers from Britain. It celebrates the Glorious Revolution (1688) and victory of Dutch Protestant king William of Orange over Catholic King of England James II at the Battle of the Boyne (1690). On and around the Twelfth, large parades are held by the Orange Order and Ulster loyalist marching bands, streets are bedecked with British flags and bunting, and large bonfires are lit. Today the Twelfth is mainly celebrated in Northern Ireland (where it is a public holiday), but smaller celebrations are held in other parts of the world where Orange lodges have been set up. The Twelfth involves thousands of participants and spectators, but not all Ulster Protestants celebrate it.

In Ulster, where about half the population is from a Protestant background and half from a Catholic background, the Twelfth has been accompanied by violence since its beginning. Many Catholics and Irish nationalists see the Orange Order and its marches as sectarian, triumphalist and supremacist. The Order also has political links to unionism and Ulster loyalism. Violence related to the Twelfth in Northern Ireland worsened during the 30-year ethno-political conflict known as the Troubles. The Drumcree conflict is perhaps the most well-known dispute involving Orange marches.

Attempts have recently been made to downplay the political aspects of the marches and present the Twelfth as a cultural, family-friendly event at which tourists are welcome, but violence continues.

Kiribati, officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population is just over 100,000 (2011), and the island nation is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, (1,351,000 square miles) straddling the equator, and bordering the International Date Lineat its easternmost point.

The name Kiribati is the local pronunciation of "Gilberts", derived from the main island chain, the Gilbert Islands. The capital of South Tarawa consists of a number of islets connected through a series of causeways, located in the Tarawa archipelago. Kiribati became independent from the United Kingdom in 1979. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the IMF and the World Bank, and became a full member of the United Nations in 1999.

History

Early history:

The area now called Kiribati has been inhabited by Micronesians speaking the same Oceanic language since sometime between 3000 BC and AD 1300. The area was not isolated; invaders fromTonga, Samoa, and Fiji later introducedPolynesian and Melanesian cultural aspects, respectively. Intermarriage tended to blur cultural differences and resulted in a significant degree of cultural homogenisation.

Colonial era:

The islands were first sighted by British and American ships in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The main island chain was named the Gilbert Islands in 1820 by a Russian admiral, Adam von Krusenstern, and French captain Louis Duperrey, after a British captain named Thomas Gilbert, who crossed the archipelago in 1788 when sailing from Australia to China.

From the early 19th century, Western whalers, merchant vessels and slave traders visited the islands, introducing diseases and firearms. The first British settlers arrived in 1837. In 1892 the Gilbert Islands consented to become a British protectorate together with the nearby Ellice Islands. They were administered by the Western Pacific High Commission based in Fiji. Together they became the crown colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in 1916. Christmas Island (or Kiritimati) became part of the colony in 1919 and the Phoenix Islands were added in 1937. Sir Arthur Grimble was a cadet administrative officer based at Tarawa (1913-1919) and became Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1926.

Tarawa Atoll and others of the Gilbert group were occupied by Japan during World War II. Tarawa was the site of one of the bloodiest battles in US Marine Corps history. Marines landed in November 1943; the Battle of Tarawa was fought at Kiribati's former capital Betioon Tarawa Atoll.

Some of the islands of Kiribati, especially in the remote Line Islands, were formerly used by the United States and United Kingdom fornuclear weapons testing including hydrogen bombs in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Independence to present day:

The Gilbert and Ellice Islands gained self-rule in 1971, and were separated in 1975 and granted internal self-government by Britain. In 1978 the Ellice Islands became the independent nation of Tuvalu. The Gilbert Islands became independent as Kiribati on 12 July 1979. Although the indigenous Gilbertese language name for the Gilbert Islands proper is "Tungaru", the new state chose the name "Kiribati", the Gilbertese rendition of "Gilberts", as an equivalent of the former colony to acknowledge the inclusion of Banaba, the Line Islands, and the Phoenix Islands, which were never considered part of the Gilberts chain. In the Treaty of Tarawa, signed shortly after independence and ratified in 1983, the United States relinquished all claims to the sparsely inhabited Phoenix Islands and those of the Line Islands that are part of Kiribati territory.

Overcrowding has been a problem. In 1988 it was announced that 4,700 residents of the main island group would be resettled onto less-populated islands. Teburoro Tito was elected president in 1994. Kiribati's 1995 act of moving the international date line far to the east to encompass the Line Islands group, so that it would no longer be divided by the date line, courted controversy. The move, which fulfilled one of President Tito's campaign promises, was intended to allow businesses all across the expansive nation to keep the same business week. This also enabled Kiribati to become the first country to see the dawn of the third millennium, an event of significance for tourism. Tito was reelected in 1998. Kiribati gained UN membership in 1999.

In 2002 Kiribati passed a controversial law enabling the government to shut down newspapers. The legislation followed the launching of Kiribati's first successful nongovernment-run newspaper. President Tito was reelected in 2003, but was removed from office in March 2003 by a no-confidence vote and replaced by a Council of State. Anote Tong of the opposition party Boutokaan Te Koaua was elected to succeed Tito in July 2003. He was re-elected in 2007.

In June 2008, Kiribati officials asked Australia and New Zealand to accept Kiribati citizens as permanent refugees.

Kiribati is expected to be the first country in which all land territory disappears due to global climate change. In June 2008, the Kiribati president Anote Tongsaid that the country has reached "the point of no return"; he added: "To plan for the day when you no longer have a country is indeed painful but I think we have to do that."

As sea levels continue to rise, the government of Kiribati is negotiating a deal with Fiji to evacuate the entire population to areas of Fiji that the Kiribati government would buy. The area of Fiji proposed for resettlement is the second largest Fijian island of Vanua Levu. The mass migration is expected to include younger, skilled workers first, and then the rest of the population would follow over a period of years.

Independence Day Sao Tome & Principe - Jul 12

São Tomé and Príncipe, officially the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, is a Portuguese-speaking island nation in the Gulf of Guinea, off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa. It consists of two archipelagos around the two main islands: São Tomé and Príncipe, located about 140 kilometres (87 mi) apart and about 250 and 225 kilometres (155 and 140 mi), respectively, off the northwestern coast ofGabon. Both islands are part of an extinct volcanic mountain range. São Tomé, the sizable southern island, is situated just north of the equator. It was named in honour ofSaint Thomas by Portuguese explorers who arrived at the island on his feast day.

With a population of 163,000 (2010), São Tomé and Príncipe is the second-smallest African country (the Seychelles being the smallest).

It is the smallest country in the world in terms of population that is not a former British overseas territory, a former United Statestrusteeship, or one of the European microstates. It is also the smallest Portuguese-speaking country.

History

The islands of São Tomé and Príncipe were uninhabited before the arrival of thePortuguese sometime around 1470.

The islands were discovered by João de Santarémand Pedro Escobar and bore his name until the 20th century. Portuguese navigators explored the islands and decided that they would be good locations for bases to trade with the mainland.

The dates of discovery are sometimes given as December 21 (St Thomas's Day), 1471 for São Tomé, and January 17 (St Anthony's Day), 1472 for Príncipe, though other sources give different nearby years. Príncipe was initially named Santo Antão ("Saint Anthony"), changing its name in 1502 to Ilha do Príncipe ("Prince's Island"), in reference to the Prince of Portugal to whom duties on the island's sugar crop were paid.

The first successful settlement of São Tomé was established in 1493 by Álvaro Caminha, who received the land as a grant from the crown. Príncipe was settled in 1500 under a similar arrangement. Attracting settlers proved difficult, however, and most of the earliest inhabitants were "undesirables" sent from Portugal, mostly Jews. In time these settlers found the volcanic soil of the region suitable for agriculture, especially the growing ofsugar.

The cultivation of sugar was a labour-intensive process and the Portuguese began to import large numbers of slaves from the mainland. By the mid-16th century the Portuguese settlers had turned the islands into Africa's foremost exporter of sugar. São Tomé and Príncipe were taken over and administered by the Portuguese crown in 1522 and 1573, respectively.

However, superior sugar colonies in the Western Hemisphere began to hurt the islands. The large slave population also proved difficult to control, with Portugal unable to invest many resources in the effort. Sugar cultivation thus declined over the next 100 years, and by the mid-17th century, the economy of São Tomé had changed. It was now primarily a transit point for ships engaged in the slave tradebetween the West and continental Africa.

In the early 19th century, two new cash crops, coffee and cocoa, were introduced. The rich volcanic soils proved well suited to the new cash crop industry, and soon extensive plantations (known as "roças"), owned by Portuguese companies or absentee landlords, occupied almost all of the good farmland. By 1908, São Tomé had become the world's largest producer of cocoa, which remains the country's most important crop.

The roças system, which gave the plantation managers a high degree of authority, led to abuses against the African farm workers. Although Portugal officially abolished slavery in 1876, the practice of forced paid labor continued. Scientific American Magazine documented in words and pictures the continued use of slaves in São Tomé in their March 13, 1897 issue. In the early 20th century, an internationally publicized controversy arose over charges that Angolan contract workers were being subjected to forced labor and unsatisfactory working conditions. Sporadic labor unrest and dissatisfaction continued well into the 20th century, culminating in an outbreak of riots in 1953 in which several hundred African laborers were killed in a clash with their Portuguese rulers. This "Batepá Massacre" remains a major event in the colonial history of the islands, and its anniversary is officially observed by the government.

By the late 1950s, when other emerging nations across the African Continent were demanding independence, a small group of São Toméans had formed the Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe (MLSTP), which eventually established its base in nearby Gabon. Picking up momentum in the 1960s, events moved quickly after the overthrow of the Caetano dictatorship in Portugal in April 1974. The new Portuguese regime was committed to the dissolution of its overseas colonies; in November 1974, their representatives met with the MLSTP in Algiers and worked out an agreement for the transfer of sovereignty. After a period of transitional government, São Tomé and Príncipe achieved independence on July 12, 1975, choosing as the first president the MLSTP Secretary General Manuel Pinto da Costa.

In 1990, São Tomé became one of the first African countries to embrace democratic reform, and changes to the constitution — the legalization of opposition political parties — led to elections in 1991 that were nonviolent, free, and transparent. Miguel Trovoada, a former prime minister who had been in exile since 1986, returned as an independent candidate and was elected president. Trovoada was re-elected in São Tomé's second multi-party presidential election in 1996. The Party of Democratic Convergence (PCD) overtook the MLSTP to take a majority of seats in the National Assembly, with the MLSTP becoming an important and vocal minority party. Municipal elections followed in late 1992, in which the MLSTP came back to win a majority of seats on five of seven regional councils. In early legislative elections in October 1994, the MLSTP won a plurality of seats in the Assembly. It regained an outright majority of seats in the November 1998 elections. The Government of São Tomé fully functions under a multi-party system. Presidential elections were held in July 2001. The candidate backed by the Independent Democratic Action party, Fradique de Menezes, was elected in the first round and inaugurated on September 3. Parliamentary elections were held in March 2002. For the next four years, a series of short-lived opposition-led governments were formed.

The army seized power for one week in July 2003, complaining of corruption and that forthcoming oil revenues would not be divided fairly. An accord was negotiated under which President de Menezes was returned to office.

The cohabitation period ended in March 2006, when a pro-presidential coalition won enough seats in National Assembly elections to form and head a new government.

In the 30 July 2006 presidential election, Fradique de Menezes easily won a second five-year term in office, defeating two other candidates Patrice Trovoada (son of former President Miguel Trovoada) and independent Nilo Guimarães.

Local elections, the first since 1992, took place on 27 August 2006 and were dominated by members of the ruling coalition.

On February 12, 2009, there was an attempted coup d'état to overthrow President Fradique de Menezes. The coup plotters were imprisoned, but later received a pardon from President de Menezes.