Every Day Is Special

November 3 – Victory Day in the Maldives

Posted on November 3, 2016

It was called Operation Cactus.

There were no casualties.

The winners were Indian paratroopers and the Indian navy.

Does this sound like a set up for Victory Day in the Maldives? Unlikely as it sounds, it's true:

The Maldives are a bunch of coral atolls in the Indian Ocean. It's very small, and the population is more dispersed than those of most countries – since the atolls are flung far-and-wide. The islands seem to be a tropical paradise – so much so that the economy depends heavily on tourism.

Still, people who want power sometimes struggle and fight for it, even on a tropical paradise with little economic clout and a sparse population!

Apparently supporters of a former president, Ibrahim Nasir, attempted several coups against the then-current President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. The 1988 coup attempt included, not just Nasir supporters in the Maldives, but also a group of Tamil terrorists / militants – I assume “guns for hire.” (In other words, I assume the Tamil fighters were taking part because they were being paid to do so.)

The Tamil fighters gained control of several buildings and the airport in the capital city of Malé but did not capture President Gayoom. He fled and asked for help from several other nations. India quickly responded with – as I mentioned above – a parachute battalion and the navy. And in just a few hours, the Indian forces were able to recapture the airport and buildings. They sent the mercenaries on their way and restored order by the lawful government (including Gayoom).

The people of the Maldives have celebrated November 3 as Victory Day ever since.

The Maldives is an Islamic country. And yet its economy depends on tourism. I wondered how the two things worked together in practice, given the interest in alcohol and skimpy swimwear in a lot of tourist resorts.

What I found out was that most tourists are whisked straight from the airport to their resort, and there is almost no mixing between tourists and Maldivians. Each resort seems to be on its own island – but there is a choice from 106 different resort islands to choose from! Maldivians do not live on the resort islands.

I also read that the Maldives has become more and more repressive with its citizens, with a reactivated death penalty, public floggings, and punishment for crimes that aren't crimes in most nations, such as publicly taking part in a religion other than Islam or carrying a can of Spam or other pork product. Some people wonder if it is ethical to support such a nation with tourist dollars – even if the Maldivians do leave the tourist resorts completely out of their Islamic law enforcement.

I personally think it best to choose another tropical paradise. The Maldives seem to be unstable at best...at least right now.

Also on this date:

Bunka No Hi in Japan

Independence of Cuenca in Ecuador

Independence Day in Dominica

Separation Day in Panama

Cliché Day

National Double-Talk Week

Japan's Culture Day

Chemist Jokichi Takamine's birthday

Sandwich Day

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

November holidays
November birthdays
Historical anniversaries in November

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

December holidays
December birthdays
Historical anniversaries in December

-->

November 2 – New States! Two States! Two More Red States!

Posted on November 2, 2016

Have you ever wondered why there are TWO Dakotas? Why not just one state called “Dakota”?

Of course, the Dakotas are not the only split states – the U.S. also has a North and South Carolina and a West Virginia as well as Virginia.

North and South Carolina's evolution from the Carolana colony to two separate colonies and then states occurred back in the 1700s – and, from what I can tell, it was caused partly by messy beginnings of governance and poor leadership, and partly by the fact that the original land grant was too large.

West Virginia split from the eastern portion of Virginia in 1861, because the latter voted to secede from the United States in the lead-up to the Civil War.

North and South Dakota experienced at least two reasons for the split:

From the creation of the Dakota Territory in 1861 until 1883, Yankton was the capital, even though it was way down in the southeastern corner of the territory, really far away from the northern reaches. Yankton had a great benefit in the “location, location, location” rule, since it was a steamboat landing along the Missouri River. However, the landing was crushed by the breaking of an ice dam, in 1881, and the entire riverfront and downtown area were flooded with water, ice, and rocks. So...not such a good “location, location, location,” at that point.

Two years later, the northern region of the Dakota Territory declared a railroad center named Bismarck as the capital of the territory. The people living in the southern region resented the “capital grab,” and there were a LOT more people in the south. They made a move to become a state, separate from the northern territory, partly so that they could have their own capital.

The U.S. government pretty much answered these attempts for separate-South -Dakotan statehood with, “Nope. Come in as one large state, Dakota, or wait until the North has enough people to come in as their own state.”

The latter is what happened. And when North Dakota was finally populated enough to become a state, in 1889, there was a rivalry about which state would be admitted first. President Benjamin Harrison signed the papers to formally admit the two separate states on this date in 1889, and he shuffled the papers together and signed blindly, so that even he didn't know which state was first. (But, since “North” comes before “South” in an alphabetical sorting, North Dakota is traditionally called the 39^th state, and South Dakota is the 40^th.)

By the way, South Dakota did not choose its old capital, Yankton, as the capital. Instead, they went with a city that was centrally located according to the state's boundaries: Pierre.
Another, perhaps more important, reason for two separate states instead of one large state: two separate states means four senators, not two, and more representatives as well. And since Dakotans from the north and the south routinely voted Republican, the admission of two Dakotas gave the Republicans a majority in Congress.

It goes without saying that none of these reasons take into consideration the lives and wishes of the original inhabitants of the land. Here are the Dakotan peoples that lost their lands and, in too many cases, their lives:

the Mandan people
the Lakota and Dakota peoples, including:
the Santee people
the Dakota people
the Yanktonai people
the Sichangu people
the Oglala people
the Itazipcho people
the Hunkpapha people
the Sihasapa people
the Oohenunpa people

Another umbrella name for the native peoples are the Sioux.

I have to admit that I have only been to one of the Dakotas. I made a list of the things I most wanted to see and do in the Dakotas, and almost all of them were in the southwestern corner of the state – which is perfect, since we were driving from Southern California. So we went to the southwestern corner of South Dakota and that was it. We saw lots of fun things. Here are just a few of the stand-outs:

Badlands National Park (above and below) was really, really beautiful lands.

Custer State Park (above and the next two below)
We had bison walking RIGHT BY OUR CAR, just inches away!

I loved loved loved the rocky pinnacles or spires along the road,
and I loved loved loved the rocky mounds around Sylvan Lake.

The far-from-finished Crazy Horse Memorial (above)...

(Above and below) We enjoyed a presidential scavenger
hunt in Rapid City!

Of course, the iconic Mount Rushmore!
(above and below)

Mammoth Site in Hot Springs (above) -
a place with a LOT of active excavation
of mammoth skeletons - fascinating!

Also on this date:

Tennis champion and music coach Marion Jones Farquhar

All Souls' Day

Cookie Monster Day

Trailblazer Daniel Boone's birthday

Mathematician George Boole's birthday

Anniversary of the invention of cheerleading

Pushkar Camel Fair 11/2 to 11/14, 2016

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

November holidays
November birthdays
Historical anniversaries in November

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

December holidays
December birthdays
Historical anniversaries in December

November 1 – Revolution Day in Algeria

Posted on November 1, 2016

Notice that Algeria (on the map above)
is quite close to France (on the map
below).

Like most nations in Africa, Algeria was colonized by a European nation. Well, to be honest, it was more conquered than colonized – in 1830 France invaded Algeria, and the war of conquest was long and bloody. When Algeria was good and won, French officials encouraged French citizens to move from France to Algeria and apparently were given lands that had been confiscated from native Algerians. In this sense, Algeria was more considered another, new extension of France rather than a colony!