Happy Birthday to Panama!

Luzhniki Stadium, the largest football stadium in Russia. It will host 7 games of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, including the opening and the final matches. *Photo from Wikipedia June 12 is Russia Day, the national holiday of the Russian Federation. It commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) on June 12, 1990. Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic became the largest and leading constituent of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world’s first constitutionally socialist state. The Soviet Union played a decisive role in

Malé, the capital of the Maldives. *Photo from Wikipedia July 26 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Maldives from the United Kingdom in 1965. The Maldives have been historically and culturally linked to the Indian subcontinent since the fourth century BCE (before the Common Era). The Maldivian archipelago was Islamized in the 12th century and consolidated as a sultanate, developing strong commercial and cultural ties with Asia and Africa. From the mid 16th-century, the region came under the increasing influence of European colonial powers, with the Maldives becoming a British protectorate in 1887. Independence from the United Kingdom was

A market scene in Mali. *Photo from Wikipedia. September 22 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Mali from France in 1960. Present-day Mali was once part of 3 West African empires that controlled trans-Saharan trade: the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire (for which Mali is named), and the Songhai Empire. During its golden age, there was a flourishing of mathematics, astronomy, literature, and art. At its peak in 1300, the Mali Empire covered an area about twice the size of modern-day France and stretched to the west coast of Africa. In the late 19th century, during the Scramble for