Happy Birthday to Suriname!

Tunis, the capital and the largest city of Tunisia. *Photo from Wikipedia March 20 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Tunisia from France in 1956. In ancient times, Tunisia was primarily inhabited by Berbers. Phoenician immigration began in the 12th century BC; these immigrants founded Carthage. A major mercantile power and a military rival of the Roman Republic, Carthage was defeated by the Romans in 146 BC. The Romans, who would occupy Tunisia for most of the next eight hundred years, introduced Christianity and left architectural legacies. After several attempts starting in 647, the Arabs conquered the whole of

The annual Bengali New Year parade. Bengali New Year (“Pahela Baishakh” or “Bangla Nabobarsho”) is the first day of Bengali Calendar. It is celebrated on 14 April as a national holiday in Bangladesh. *Photo from Wikipedia March 26 is Bangladesh’s Independence Day and National Day, celebrates the declaration of independence from Pakistan in 1971. The Greeks and Romans identified the region as “Gangaridai”, a powerful kingdom of the historical subcontinent, in the 3rd century BCE. Archaeological research has unearthed several ancient cities in Bangladesh, which had international trade links for millennia. The Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal transformed the region

Road from Nouakchott to the Mauritanian–Senegalese border. *Photo from Wikipedia November 28 is Independence Day, which celebrates the independence of Mauritania from France in 1960. Berber immigration took place from about the 3rd century. Mauritania takes its name from the ancient Berber kingdom and later Roman province of Mauretania, and thus ultimately from the Mauri people, even though the respective territories do not overlap, historical Mauritania being considerably further north than modern Mauritania. The Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th and 8th centuries did not reach as far south, and Islam came to Mauritania only gradually, from about