Happy Birthday to Panama!

Solomon Islander boys. Rugby is played in Solomon Islands. *Photo from Wikipedia July 7 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Solomon Islands from the United Kingdom in 1978. The islands have been inhabited for thousands of years. In 1568, the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to visit them, naming them the Islas Salomón. Britain defined its area of interest in the Solomon Islands archipelago in June 1893, when Captain Gibson R.N., of HMS Curacoa (corvette of the Royal Navy, United Kingdom’s principal naval warfare force), declared the southern Solomon Islands as a British Protectorate with

Market in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon. *Photo from Wikipedia May 20 is Cameroon’s National Day, creation of a unitary state in 1972. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões (“Shrimp River”), which became Cameroon in English. Cameroon became a German colony in 1884 known as Kamerun. After World War I, the territory was divided between France and the United Kingdom as League of Nations mandates. The Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) political party advocated independence, but was outlawed by France in the 1950s, leading to the Cameroonian Independence War.

Koror City, the largest city in Palau. It was formerly the capital until 2006. *Photo from Wikipedia October 1 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Palau from the UN Trust Territory status in 1994. The country was originally settled approximately 3,000 years ago by migrants from the Philippines. The islands were first explored by Europeans in the 16th century, and were made part of the Spanish East Indies in 1574. Following Spain’s defeat in the Spanish-American War in 1898, the islands were sold to Imperial Germany in 1899 under the terms of the German-Spanish Treaty, where they were administered