Happy Birthday to Panama!

Banners and flags hanging in Montreal’s Chinatown in celebration for the 100th National Day. *Photo from Wikipedia October 10 is Double Ten Day, The National Day of Taiwan. It celebrates outbreak of the “Wuchang Uprising”（武昌起義）in 1911, which led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in China and establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) on January 1, 1912. As a result of the Chinese Civil War, fought between forces loyal to the Kuomintang (KMT)-led government of the Republic of China, and forces loyal to the Communist Party of China (CPC), the government of ROC lost control of mainland China

Bogotá, the capital and largest city of Colombia. *Photo from Wikipedia July 20 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence declaration of Colombia from Spain in 1810. The Spanish set foot on Colombian soil for the first time in 1499 and in the first half of the 16th century initiated a period of conquest and colonization, ultimately creating the New Kingdom of Granada, with as capital Santafé de Bogotá. Independence from Spain was acquired in 1819, but by 1830 the “Gran Colombia” Federation was dissolved. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada. The new nation

Tajik young women during Navrūz (Persian New Year). They are holding sprouting plants which symbolize rebirth. *Photo from Wikipedia September 9 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Tajikistan from USSR in 1991. The area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Achaemenid Empire, Sasanian Empire, Hephthalite Empire, Samanid Empire, Mongol Empire and Timurid dynasty. The Tajik people came under Russian rule in the 1860s. The Basmachi revolt, an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim peoples of Central Asia, broke out in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was quelled