Happy Birthday to Panama!

Children in a Rwandan primary school. *Photo from Wikipedia July 1 is Independence Day of Rwanda and Burundi, celebrates the independence from Belgium in 1962. Belgian forces took control of Rwanda and Burundi in 1916, during World War I, beginning a period of more direct colonial rule. Belgium ruled both Rwanda and Burundi as a League of Nations ‘mandate’ called Ruanda-Urundi. The territory was under Belgian military occupation from 1916 to 1922 and later became a Belgian-controlled Class B Mandate (former German territories in West and Central Africa which were deemed to require a greater level of control by the

View of Ljubljana, the capital and largest city of Slovenia. *Photo from Wikipedia December 26 is Independence and Unity Day of Slovenia, commemorates the official proclamation of the Slovenian independence referendum on December 26, 1990. Historically, the current territory of Slovenia was part of many different state formations, including the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, followed by the Habsburg Monarchy. In October 1918, the Slovenes exercised self-determination for the first time by co-founding the internationally unrecognized “State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs”, which merged that December with the Kingdom of Serbia into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and

Ljubljana, the capital and largest city of Slovenia. *Photo from Wikipedia June 25 is Statehood Day of Croatia and Slovenia. It is a holiday that occurs to celebrate their 1991 declaration of independence from Yugoslavia. Croatia In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the unrecognized State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs which seceded from Austria-Hungary and merged into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The fascist Croatian puppet state backed by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany existed during World War II. After the war, Croatia became a founding member and a federal constituent of the Socialist Federal Republic of