June 1, 2011 - Madaraka Day – Kenya

This national day commemorates the day that Kenya attained self-rule in 1963. (The nation was fully independent from the United Kingdom by December of the same year.) Kenyans will celebrate the day with speeches and shows. You can get idea of the sorts of shows are being put on today by watching this short video (even though the visuals are a bit blurry). 

Kenya, the cradle of humanity...

Many archeologists, such as Richard Leakey, believe that humanity began in what we now call Kenya, because they have found ancient human skeletons and also skeletons from pre-human ancestors. One example is Turkana boy, who was Homo erectus. (Other pre-human skeletons such as Lucy, the famous Australopithecus afarensis, have been found in nearby Ethiopia.)

Read about early pre-humans and prehistoric humans at Kids Past

Learn more about Kenya...

  • Here's a quick quiz about Kenya.

  • Here's a map game about all of Africa.

  • Here is a jigsaw puzzle of a Kenyan scene. (Note: you can choose to have way fewer pieces by clicking the words "Change Cut" on the left side of the screen.)



2 comments:

  1. Not Kenya, Ethiopia is the cradle of humanity, right?

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  2. Oops, New Generation, I didn't spot this comment until today. Sorry!

    There are several ideas about what can be rightly called "the cradle of humanity." These ideas depend on what we call "humanity," and of course may be supplanted as new fossils are discovered. So far the three African nations that get mentioned the most seem to be Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania.

    All I can say is, humanity started in Africa. (Have you seen the t-shirts that state "We are all Africans"?

    Here is one source: http://africanhistory.about.com/od/eraprehistory/a/KenyaFossils.htm

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