Happy Birthday to Belgium!

Singer-songwriter Björk, the best-known Icelandic musician. *Photo from Wikipedia Icelandic National Day, celebrates the independence of Iceland from Kingdom of Denmark in 1944. According to the ancient manuscript, the settlement of Iceland began in the year 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first permanent settler on the island. In the following centuries, Norwegians, and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, emigrated to Iceland, bringing with them thralls of Gaelic origin. The island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the “Althing”, one of the world’s oldest functioning legislative assemblies. Following a period of civil strife, Iceland

A tree-kangaroo. The kangaloos inhabit the tropical rainforests of New Guinea. *Photo from Wikipedia September 16 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Papua New Guinea from Australia in 1975. Little was known in Europe about the island until the 19th century, although Portuguese and Spanish explorers had encountered it as early as the 16th century. In the 19th century, Germany ruled the northern half of the country as a colony for some decades, beginning in 1884, as German New Guinea. The southern half was colonized in the same year by the United Kingdom as British New Guinea. With the

Traditional Mongolian wrestling. *Photo from Wikipedia November 26 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Mongolia from China on July 11, 1921 and the establishment of “Mongolian People’s Republic” on the day in 1924. The area that is now Mongolia was ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu (匈奴), the Xianbei (鮮卑), the Rouran (柔然), the Turkic Khaganate (突厥汗国), among others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous land empire in history. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China to establish the Yuan dynasty (元朝). After the collapse of the Yuan, the Mongols retreated