Happy Birthday to Panama!

A market in Guinea. *Photo from Wikipedia October 2 is Independence Day, which celebrates the independence of Guinea from France in 1958. The slave trade came to the coastal region of Guinea with European traders in the 16th century. Guinea’s colonial period began with French military penetration into the area in the mid-19th century. France negotiated Guinea’s present boundaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the British for Sierra Leone, the Portuguese for their Guinea colony (now Guinea-Bissau), and Liberia. Under the French, the country formed the Territory of Guinea within French West Africa. In 1958, the

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

Bucharest, the capital and largest city of Romania. *Photo from Wikipedia May 10 is the Independence Day or King’s Day, celebrates Romania’s victorious independence war against the Ottoman Empire in 1877-1878, concluded with the recognition of Romania’s independence. Modern Romania was formed in 1859. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. During World War II, Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, fighting side by side with the Wehrmacht