Happy Birthday to Panama!

A market scene in Mali. *Photo from Wikipedia. September 22 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Mali from France in 1960. Present-day Mali was once part of 3 West African empires that controlled trans-Saharan trade: the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire (for which Mali is named), and the Songhai Empire. During its golden age, there was a flourishing of mathematics, astronomy, literature, and art. At its peak in 1300, the Mali Empire covered an area about twice the size of modern-day France and stretched to the west coast of Africa. In the late 19th century, during the Scramble for

Junkanoo celebration in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. Junkanoo is a street parade with music, dance, and costumes across the Bahamas every Boxing Day (December 26) and New Year’s Day (January 1). *Photo from Wikipedia July 10 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of the Bahamas from the United Kingdom in 1973. The Bahamas became a British Crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American War of Independence, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists in the Bahamas; they brought their slaves with them and established plantations on land grants. Africans constituted the

The island of Mustique in the Grenadines. *Photo from Wikipedia October 27 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines from United Kingdom in 1979. The island now known as Saint Vincent was originally named Youloumain by the native Island Caribs who called themselves Kalina/Carina. The Caribs aggressively prevented European settlement on Saint Vincent until 1719. Prior to this, formerly enslaved Africans, who had either been shipwrecked or who had escaped from Barbados, Saint Lucia and Grenada and sought refuge in mainland Saint Vincent, intermarried with the Caribs and became known as Black Caribs or Garifuna.