Happy Birthday to Nigeria!

Masqueraders during Carnival celebrations. *Photo from Wikipedia August 31 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Trinidad and Tobago from the United Kingdom in 1962. The island of Trinidad was a Spanish colony from the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1498 to the arrival of a British fleet of 18 warships on February 18, 1797. During the same period, the island of Tobago changed hands among Spanish, British, French, Dutch and Courlander colonizers, more times than any other island in the Caribbean. Trinidad and Tobago (remaining separate until 1889) were ceded to Britain in 1802. The country Trinidad and Tobago

Paramaribo, the capital and largest city of Suriname. *Photo from Wikipedia November 25 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Suriname from the Netherlands in 1975. Long inhabited by numerous cultures of indigenous tribes, Suriname was explored and contested by European powers before coming under Dutch rule in the late 17th century. In 1954, the country became one of the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. On November 25, 1975, the country of Suriname left the Kingdom of the Netherlands to become an independent state, nonetheless maintaining close economic, diplomatic, and cultural ties to its former colonizer. Suriname,

Tuvaluan children. *Photo from Wikipedia October 1 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Tuvalu from United Kingdom in 1978. In 1568, Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to sail through the archipelago. In 1819, the name Ellice was applied to all nine islands after the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay. The islands came under Britain’s sphere of influence in the late 19th century, when each of the Ellice Islands was declared a British Protectorate between October 9 and 16, 1892. The Ellice Islands were administered as British protectorate from 1892 to 1974. A referendum