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History of Canada

Canada is a country built upon the many qualities of its people in combination with the natural landscape of geography. Many of the great stories which can be told about the countries history, heritage and culture are set against the backdrop of giant settings such as the Canadian Shield, the Atlantic Coast, the Rocky Mountains, the Arctic and during the presence of giant men and women who shaped events.

History of Mexico

Mexico's historical attractions - from the ancient ruins of the Olmecs, Maya, and Aztec, to the train routes used by the brash and legendary Pancho Villa - rank second only to the beaches of Cancun - and Alcapulco as the prime reason people come. The reason for this is simple: the tale of Mexico's past, accompanied by an overwhelming amount of physical remains, is as romantic, blood-curling, dramatic, and complex as it gets.  History of Italy

Few countries have been on such a roller-coaster ride as Italy. The Italian peninsula lay at the core of the Roman Empire; one of the world’s great monotheistic religions, Catholicism, has its headquarters in Rome; and it was largely the dynamic city-states of Italy that set the modern era in motion with the Renaissance. But Italy has known chaos and deep suffering, too. The rise of Europe’s nation-states from the 16th century left the divided Italian peninsula behind. Italian unity was won in blood, but many Italians have since lived in abject poverty, sparking great waves of migration. The economic miracle of the 1960s propelled Italy to the top league of wealthy Western countries but since the 1990s the country has wallowed in a mire of frustration. A sluggish economy, ineffective and squabbling government, widespread corruption and the continuing open sore of the Mafia continue to overshadow the country’s otherwise sunny disposition.

Read more: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy/history#ixzz2ziyEYSW2

History of Iceland

The first people known to have inhabitated Iceland were Irish monks or hermits who came in the eighth century, but left with the arrival of the pagan Norsemen, who systematically settled Iceland in the period 870 - 930 A.D. Iceland was thus the last European country to be settled. The main source of information about the settlement period in Iceland is the Landnámabók (Book of Settlements), written in the 12th century, which gives a detailed account of the first settlers. According to this book Ingólfur Arnarson was the first settler. He was a chieftain from Norway, arriving in Iceland with his family and dependents in 874. He built his farm in Reykjavík, the site of the present capital. During the next 60 years or so, viking settlers from Scandinavia, bringing some Celtic people with them, spread their homesteads over the habitable areas. In the year 930, at the end of the Settlement period, a constitutional law code was accepted and Alþingi established. The judicial power of Alþingi was distributed between four local courts and a type of a Supreme Court held annually at the national assembly at Þingvellir.  History of Napal

Before Nepal's emergence as a nation in the latter half of the 18th century, the designation 'Nepal' was largely applied only to the Kathmandu Valley. Thus up until the unification of the country, Nepal's history is largely the history of the Kathmandu Valley. References to Nepal in famous Hindu epics such as the Mahabharata, Puranas and also Buddhist and Jain scriptures, establish the country's antiquity as an independent political and territorial entity. The Vamshavalis or chronicles, the oldest of which was written during the 14th century, are the only fairly reliable basis for Nepal's ancient history. The Vamshavalis mention the rule of several dynasties the Gopalas, the Abhiras and the Kiratas -- over a stretch of centuries. However, no extant historical evidence has yet authenticated the rule of these legendary dynasties. The documented history of Nepal begins with the Changu Narayan temple inscription of King Manadeva I (C 464-505 A.D.) of the Lichavi dynasty.

History of Indonesia

The first known hominid inhabitant of Indonesia was the so-called "Java Man", or Homo erectus, who lived here half a million years ago. Some 60,000 years ago, the ancestors of the present-day Papuans move eastward through these islands, eventually reaching New Guinea and Australia some 30-40,000 years ago. Much later, in about the fourth millennium B.C., they were followed by the ancestors of the modern-day Malays, Javanese and other Malayo-Polynesian groups who now make up the bulk of Indonesia's population.

History of Aruba

The first people to inhabit the island were a nation of Arawak Indians called the Caiquetios who migrated north from the Orinoco Basin in South America and settled here approximately 2,000 years ago. Remnants of their culture can still be found at a number of different sites around the island: pottery, earthenware, and other artefacts at the Archeological Museum in Oranjestad and at the Historical Museum of Aruba at Fort Zoutman and William III Tower; and cave drawings and petroglyphs in the Fontein and Guadiriki Caves and at Arikok National Park.

History of Antarctica

The history of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The term Antarctic, referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle, was coined by Marinus of Tyre in the second century AD.

History of Christmas Island

Christmas Island is world-class. 250 square miles of coral sand, iridescent lagoons and coconut palms – what seems like one of the smallest places on earth is actually a geographical giant, the planet's largest coral atoll. Tossed up over millennia by the pounding surf, it rests just above the waves on an ancient reef, the reef which ages ago ringed the undersea volcano thrusting it three miles up from the ocean floor. A microcosm of terrestrial life, a world of sea and sky, it's a tropical oasis, a nesting place for millions of seabirds, dominated by the teeming empire from which it barely protrudes.

History of Cuba

Columbus, treasure and tobacco In 1492 Columbus discovered not continental America, but San Salvador, an island in the Bahamas. His second discovery just 15 days later was a much larger island which he named 'Juana' in honour of a Spanish princess.

In Cuba - as Juana became - Columbus imagined he had found the garden of Eden. "This land is the most beautiful that eyes have seen" were his first words. When he had got over that, Columbus thought he had discovered the Asian East Indies, part of the Empire of the Great Khan described by Marco Polo as rich in gold and treasures.