Happy Birthday to Panama!

Asunción, the capital and largest city of Paraguay. *Photo from Wikipedia May 14 is Paraguay’s Flag Day, the real date of the independence of Paraguay from Spain in 1811. Celebration continues the next main day, Independence Day. The indigenous Guaraní had been living in Paraguay for at least a millennium before the Spanish conquered the territory in the 16th century. Spanish settlers and Jesuit missions introduced Christianity and Spanish culture to the region. Paraguay was a peripheral colony of the Spanish Empire, with few urban centers and settlers. In early 1811 Paraguayan forces had repeatedly defeated Argentinian army which considered

The annual Bengali New Year parade. Bengali New Year (“Pahela Baishakh” or “Bangla Nabobarsho”) is the first day of Bengali Calendar. It is celebrated on 14 April as a national holiday in Bangladesh. *Photo from Wikipedia March 26 is Bangladesh’s Independence Day and National Day, celebrates the declaration of independence from Pakistan in 1971. The Greeks and Romans identified the region as “Gangaridai”, a powerful kingdom of the historical subcontinent, in the 3rd century BCE. Archaeological research has unearthed several ancient cities in Bangladesh, which had international trade links for millennia. The Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal transformed the region

Central market in Chișinău, the capital and largest city of Moldova. *Photo from Wikipedia August 27 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Moldova from the USSR in 1991. Most of the Moldovan territory was a part of the Principality of Moldavia from the 14th century until 1812, when it was ceded to the Russian Empire by the Ottoman Empire (to which Moldavia was a vassal state) and became known as Bessarabia. In 1856, southern Bessarabia was returned to Moldavia, which three years later united with Wallachia to form Romania, but Russian rule was restored over the whole of the