Portal:Nicaragua/Did you know


 * ...that the first woman to be popularly elected as President of a Latin American nation was Violeta Chamorro who served her term from 1990-1997 in Nicaragua. As of 2007 she is the only woman to have served in the role?
 * ...that in 1972, nearly 90% of the capital city of Managua was destroyed in an earthquake?
 * ...that Lake Nicaragua is the largest freshwater lake in Central America (19th largest in the world) and is home to the world's only freshwater sharks?
 * ...that Nicaragua's Bosawas Biosphere Reserve protects 1800000 acre of Mosquitia forest - almost seven percent of the country's area - making it the second largest Biosphere reserve in the world after the Amazon in Brazil?
 * ...that most Nicaraguans begin and end every day with Gallo pinto, a meal of rice and beans cooked separately and then fried together, and that on the Atlantic coast it is common to add coconut oil to the dish?
 * ...that one of the world's finest rums, Ron Flor de Caña, is produced in Nicaragua?
 * ...that in the 19th century the United States had plans to build a waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the country. The Nicaragua Canal concept was abandoned after the U.S. opted to back the construction of the Panama Canal instead?