Happy Birthday to Panama!

Singer-songwriter Björk, the best-known Icelandic musician. *Photo from Wikipedia Icelandic National Day, celebrates the independence of Iceland from Kingdom of Denmark in 1944. According to the ancient manuscript, the settlement of Iceland began in the year 874 AD when the Norwegian chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson became the first permanent settler on the island. In the following centuries, Norwegians, and to a lesser extent other Scandinavians, emigrated to Iceland, bringing with them thralls of Gaelic origin. The island was governed as an independent commonwealth under the “Althing”, one of the world’s oldest functioning legislative assemblies. Following a period of civil strife, Iceland

On January 13, 1991, Soviets began shooting and crushing with tanks unarmed independence supporters. *Photo from Wikipedia March 11 is the Day of Restoration of Independence of Lithuania from the Soviet Union in 1990. As Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to revive the economy of the Soviet Union, he introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). Gorbachev´s political agenda went for great and deep changes within the Soviet government, as such, Gorvachev invited the soviet public into open and public discussions unseen before. For the soviet Lithuanian dissidents, and activists, it was a golden opportunity not to be missed, to bring their movements

Old City of Luxembourg at night. Luxembourg, also known as Luxembourg City, is the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. *Photo from Wikipedia June 23 is Grand Duke’s Official Birthday, also known as Luxembourgish National Day. It is celebrated on 23 June, although this has never been the actual birthday of any ruler of Luxembourg. Although its recorded history can be traced back to Roman times, the history of Luxembourg proper is considered to begin in 963. Over the following five centuries, the powerful House of Luxembourg emerged, but its extinction put an end to the country’s independence.