Malta

Aerial view of Valletta, the capital city of Malta. *Photo from Wikipedia September 21 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Malta from the United Kingdom in 1964. Malta’s location in the middle of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, and a succession of powers, including the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians, Spanish, Knights of St. John, French, and British have ruled the islands. King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded the George Cross to Malta in 1942 for the then British colony’s bravery in the Second World War.