Happy Birthday to Burkina Faso!

Traditional dancers in Belize. *Photo from Wikipedia September 21 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Belize from the United Kingdom in 1981. The first recorded European settlement was established by shipwrecked English seamen in 1638. Over the next 150 years, more English settlements were established. This period also was marked by piracy, indiscriminate logging, sporadic attacks by natives, and neighboring Spanish settlements. Great Britain first sent an official to the area in the late 17th century, but Belize was not formally termed the “Colony of British Honduras” until 1840. It became a crown colony in 1862. Full internal self-government

Moraingy, a traditional martial art of Madagascar. *Photo from Wikipedia June 26 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Madagascar from France in 1960. Until the late 18th century, the island of Madagascar was ruled by a fragmented assortment of shifting sociopolitical alliances. Beginning in the early 19th century, most of the island was united and ruled as the Kingdom of Madagascar by a series of Merina nobles. The monarchy collapsed in 1897 when the island was absorbed into the French colonial empire, from which the island gained independence in 1960. Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, and previously known

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