Happy Birthday to Panama!

San Salvador, the capital and the most populous city of El Salvador. *Photo from Wikipedia September 15 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of South American countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica from Spain in 1821. The colonization of the area began in 1524. In 1609 the area became a captaincy general. As part of the Bourbon Reforms in 1786 the crown established a series of intendancies in the area. The new intendancies were San Salvador (El Salvador), Ciudad Real (Chiapas), Comayagua (Honduras), and León (Nicaragua). The governor-captain general-president of Guatemala became the superintendente general

Port-Louis, the Capital of Mauritius. *Photo from Wikipedia March 12 is National Day, celebrates the independence of Mauritius from the UK in 1968. The island of Mauritius was visited during the Middle Ages by the Arabs and then by the Portuguese. The island was uninhabited until the Dutch Republic established a colony in 1638, with the Dutch naming the island after Prince Maurice van Nassau. The Dutch colony was abandoned in 1710, and, five years later, the island became a French colony and was named Isle de France. Due to its strategic position, Mauritius was known as the “star and

Dancers in traditional costume. *Photo from Wikipedia August 17 is Independence Day, celebrates the proclamation of Indonesia’s independence from Japan in 1945. The earliest evidence of Islamised populations in Indonesia dates to the 13th century in northern Sumatra; other Indonesian areas gradually adopted Islam which became the dominant religion in Java and Sumatra by the end of the 16th century. For the most part, Islam overlaid and mixed with existing cultural and religious influences. Europeans such as the Portuguese arrived in Indonesia from the 16th century seeking to monopolize the sources of valuable nutmeg, cloves, and cubeb pepper in Maluku.