Happy Birthday to Panama!

Bosnian meat platter *Photo from Wikipedia March 1 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992. Christianity arrived in the 1st century, and by the 4th century the area became part of the Western Roman Empire. Germanic tribes invaded soon after, followed by Slavs in the 6th Century. In 1136, Béla II of Hungary invaded Bosnia and created the title “Ban of Bosnia” as an honorary title for his son Ladislaus II of Hungary. During this time, Bosnia became virtually autonomous, and was eventually proclaimed a kingdom in 1377. The

Frederik de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, two of the driving forces in ending apartheid. *Photo from Wikipedia April 27 is the Freedom Day, which celebrates freedom and commemorates the first post-apartheid elections held on that day in 1994. The elections were the first non-racial national elections where everyone of voting age of over 18 from any race group, including foreign citizens permanently resident in South Africa, were allowed to vote. Previously, under the apartheid regime, non-whites had only limited rights to vote. On the first commemoration of the holiday, President Nelson Mandela addressed Parliament: “As dawn ushered in this day,

Roseau, the capital and largest city of Dominica. *Photo from Wikipedia November 3 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Dominica from the United Kingdom in 1978. The island was originally inhabited by the Kalinago and later colonized by Europeans, predominantly by the French from the 1690s to 1763. Columbus is said to have passed the island on Sunday, November 3, 1493, and the island’s name is derived from the Latin for “Sunday”. Great Britain took possession in 1763 after its defeat of France in the Seven Years’ War, and it gradually established English as the official language. The island