Happy Birthday to Panama!

San Salvador, the capital and the most populous city of El Salvador. *Photo from Wikipedia September 15 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of South American countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica from Spain in 1821. The colonization of the area began in 1524. In 1609 the area became a captaincy general. As part of the Bourbon Reforms in 1786 the crown established a series of intendancies in the area. The new intendancies were San Salvador (El Salvador), Ciudad Real (Chiapas), Comayagua (Honduras), and León (Nicaragua). The governor-captain general-president of Guatemala became the superintendente general

Traditional chiefs in Ghana in 2015. *Photo from Wikipedia March 6 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Ghana from the UK in 1957. The territory of present-day Ghana has been inhabited for millennia, with the first permanent state dating back to the 11th century. Numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful was the Kingdom of Ashanti. Beginning in the 15th century, numerous European powers contested the area for trading rights, with the British ultimately establishing control of the coast by the late 19th century. Following over a century of native resistance, Ghana’s current

A classroom in a school in Thimph, the capital and largest city of Bhutan. *Photo from Wikipedia December 17 is Bhutan’s National Day. The date marks the coronation of Ugyen Wangchuck as the first Druk Gyalpo (the head of state of Bhutan) of modern Bhutan. Bhutan is one of only a few countries which have been independent throughout their history, never conquered, occupied, or governed by an outside power. Although there has been speculation that it was under the Kamarupa Kingdom (one of the historical kingdoms of Assam, a state in northeastern India) or the Tibetan Empire in the 7th