Occasional Digest

Since independence, the history of this small, landlocked African country has been dominated by tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

The first democratic elections in June 1993, brought the Hutu, Melchoir Ndadaye to power, though he was assassinated in October of that year.

In early 1994, the parliament elected another Hutu, Cyprien Ntaryamira as President.

On April 6th 1994, Ntaryamira died in a plane crash. The private Dassault Falcon 50 jet which belonged to Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana, a fellow Hutu, was shot down while landing at Kigali International Airport, Rwanda. The plane crashed, killing both presidents. The deaths ignited the Rwandan Genocide.

President Ntaryamira Day is a solemn observance during which people reflect upon one of the most tragic events in African history.

YOUR boisterous, irrepressible dog is fun and full of character. Everyone you meet definitely feels the same way, so it’s fine to do the following:

Let him off the lead

Anyone out in a public place is thrilled to have a random dog leaping up at them and barking wildly. Parents only take their toddlers to the park in the hope of securing such a delightful animal encounter free of charge. If your dog also entertains picnicking strangers by stealing their ham sandwiches, so much the better.

Take him everywhere you go

Cafes aren’t for a relaxed catch-up with friends, which is dull. Brunch needs to be enlivened by you and your dog rocking up at the adjacent table. His incessant barking, lunges at anyone passing and rancid farts will give everyone a subject to converse on. Are those yummy mummies laughing or gagging? Laughing, obviously.

Ignore all hygiene concerns

Current dog ownership involves forgetting everything you knew about the established scientific concept of ‘germs’. Don’t worry if your pet has had a lick at the Victoria sponge you’re serving to your guests. They’ll just laugh at what a mischievous little scamp he is and definitely won’t be thinking, ‘I’m eating shitty dog arse.’

Laugh off misbehaviour as delightful

Your dog isn’t dangerous, he’s an amusingly naughty boy and has no deep-rooted psychological issues a tasty treat won’t address. Anyway, a dog who doesn’t growl and snap is like a football match without goals: boring. He was only playing. That child’s parents should stop overreacting with silly talk about stitches, police, and post-traumatic stress.

Expect friends to look after him

Don’t pay for expensive boarding kennels when you go away. They treat all dogs the same, and your dog is an individual! It will be a wonderful privilege for your friends to dogsit, which means picking up dogshit and their fitted carpet being dug up. If they’ve walked him for less than three hours it’s their fault he ate their sofa.

Put a photo of him on your Christmas cards

Christmas wouldn’t be complete for your extended family without a picture of your terrifying hound on their mantelpiece. Life’s so busy, they haven’t really had a chance to visit since you got him. This will be a lovely festive reminder of the abject fear they’re missing.

The Easter Bunny is now an established part of the Easter traditions. In Europe and America, the Easter Bunny visits the garden of children leaving chocolate eggs and treats for the children to find on Easter Egg hunts.

Rabbits and hares don’t have any direct connection to any Christian tradition and it is interesting to note that the pagan goddess, Ostara was always traditionally accompanied by a hare. The modern tradition derives from a German custom that was first recorded in the 16th century. It may seem strange for a rabbit to be laying eggs, but as eggs were part of the foods banned during Lent, then the reintroduction of eggs would have been a welcome treat, no matter how they arrived in the garden.

It was once thought that hares could give birth without conceiving, which may have made them a way of explaining the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary. It is also said that the sight of Rabbits appearing from their underground burrows is a reminder of Jesus appearing from the tomb after his resurrection on Easter morning.

On Easter Sunday, the traditional meat for dinner is lamb. The lamb was a sacrifice during the Jewish Passover, and it became a symbol for Jesus. It is also seasonal as Spring lamb is particularly tender and noted for its subtle flavour.

DO you sometimes have to ensure your elderly parents attend a family event, keep a doctor’s appointment or simply come to visit? Here is the painful process step-by-step.

1. Have they remembered they’re going? No. Your inward groans begin. 

2. Discussion of weather. Yes, it could rain on the way to your car at the top of their drive. And gloves would be wise. It’s mild right now but it could suddenly turn into Hoth.

3. Use of toilet suggested. Debated for much longer than it takes to have a wee, or attempt to. Suggestion rejected.

4. They appear to be taking a long time to get ready.You go upstairs and discover they haven’t started yet. They are looking at a fly in the bedroom.

5. Putting on coats. Somehow takes seven minutes. They’ve only got two arms.

6. Actually they will go to the toilet. Urge to shout ‘For f**k’s sake!’ resisted by not wanting to give your mum the excuse to pretend to be shocked as if it’s the 1950s.

7. You point out the time. It is meaningless to them since they live in a timeless void known as ‘retirement’. 

8. Key-carrying responsibility discussed. Dad will lock the doors, but Mum will transport the house keys in her handbag. Which has also been confirmed to contain lip balm and tissues. Glad all that’s cleared up.

9. Unnecessary task performed, eg. washing-up. Yes, four unwashed mugs and two plates with scone crumbs on will be swarming with rats and cockroaches if left for two hours.

10. Door exited and locked. The stress thus far has taken six weeks off your life.

11. Check that door is locked. It is. Luckily the lock is designed not to randomly unlock itself.

12. Second check that door is locked. Sizewell B has fewer failsafe procedures.

13. Open bathroom window noticed. Dad goes back inside to prevent doll-sized burglar getting in. All previous door steps repeated.

14. Stopping on way to car. An urgent inspection of a flowerbed is required. Geraniums confirmed to exist. No further action necessary at this point.

15. Chat with neighbour. Sadly it appears Mrs Brown’s husband is still dead.

16. Seatbelt torture. The silver bit goes into the buckle clearly designed for that, so why does your dad appear to be fighting an octopus? Haven’t retracting seatbelts been around since the 1980s?

17. Journey begins. Request to go back and get travel sweets denied for 12-minute drive.

18. (If walking) Stop to look at something utterly uninteresting. Eg. unspectacular fallen branch, minor scaffolding project, the incredible coincidence of a neighbour having the same car as one of your relatives. You pray you will somehow never get old.

19. Realisation that one has forgotten their glasses.Yes, your mother failed to notice that everything had turned into a large fuzzy blob. You must return home. All progress is undone. You want to cry.

Chungmyung Day falls on one of the 24 divisions of the year and represents the sky clearing up for spring.

Traditionally the day is spent tidying up graves and doing home repairs that could not be done during the winter months.

It takes place on the same date as the Ching Ming Festival (Tomb-Sweeping Day) in China which also shares rituals about ancestor worship.

Despite the rich history of the traditions of this day, it has only been an official holiday since 2010, when Kim Jong Eun declared this day as a holiday so that the people could spend it conducting traditional rituals.

Along with New Year’s Day, Lunar New Year’s Day, Dano (May 5th) and Chuseok, Hansik is one of the five ‘folk holidays’ offically commemorated in North Korea, but are not viewed as important as Kim Jong Il’s and Kim Il Sung’s birthdays, which both are normally celebrated with three days of holidays.

MORE and more places are welcoming dogs these days, but society still has a long way to go. Here are just six of the places I should obviously be allowed to take my gorgeous little fur baby.

Restaurants

Dogs are social creatures and they love to eat, so really a restaurant is the perfect place for them. If you’ve got a problem with my dog begging, drooling and sniffing your crotch while you enjoy dinner, that sounds like a you problem. Perhaps you should eat at home so my little angel doesn’t have to experience your dog-hating.

Your child’s birthday party

I don’t have a child. I have a dog. But why should that exclude me from your infant son’s birthday festivities? My labrador may be largely untrained and absolutely enormous, but he’ll have a blast hurtling around with your two-year-old and his mates. Just tell them not to get too rowdy as he is very easily startled.

The theatre

Just because my dog doesn’t speak English doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate the magic of theatre. And yes, perhaps he will run onto the stage and try to mount the cast – but that’s just how he expresses that he enjoyed the performance. He can’t exactly clap, can he?

An intensive care ward

I can already hear the protests – ‘But I’m critically ill!’ and ‘I’m in a coma!’. Well I’m sorry, but Milo is a curious little guy and there are lots of interesting things for him to smell in here. Plus, he absolutely loves chewing all the wires and tubes. If you saw how happy he’d be gnawing on a catheter you’d think twice about excluding him from your precious ward.

A funeral

Look, I’m sorry that a large portion of your aunt’s eulogy could not be heard because my dog was barking. But it’s not his fault. He saw a squirrel outside.

A nuclear submarine

Some people think bringing a dog aboard a cramped vessel packed with weapons of mass destruction is a bad idea. They say things like ‘It’s an extreme security risk’ and ‘How did you even get on board?’ But Milo just loves to explore new places and he won’t be any bother. If he accidentally launches a Trident missile and triggers a world war while chasing a tennis ball that seems like a design fault.

At first glance, it seems a strange name for a day that marked such a terrible event as a crucifixion, but when we look at the origin of the name it becomes clearer… or it would if there was one origin that people could agree on. As it stands, you can take your pick from the following:

• Some say it comes from the use of “Good” as an adjective applied to the day, which is an Old English synonym for “holy.”
• Others believe it stems from a corruption of the word “God,” in much the same way that “Good Bye” comes from the phrase “God be with ye.” So the name may be derived from ‘God’s Friday’.
• Undoubtedly most Christians perceive the day as “good” because the message of Easter is of Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the devil. Indeed, the New Testament is also known as the Gospel, which is Greek for ‘Good News’.

Also, it also worth noting that this confusion over the name is mainly confined to Western European and North American Christians. Eastern Orthodox Christians call it “Great and Holy Friday. Around the rest of the world, it’s known as Holy Friday in most Latin nations, ‘Great Friday’ by the Slavic peoples, “Friday of Mourning” in Germany and “Long Friday” in Norway.

The Malvinas Islands are probably better known in the English-speaking world by their British name, the Falklands.

The holiday is a tribute to Argentina’s fallen soldiers in the Falklands War, which began with the Argentine occupation of the Islands on April 2nd 1982.

The war lasted 74 days, with 255 British and 649 Argentine soldiers, sailors, and airmen, and three civilian Falklanders killed.

Malvinas Day was first introduced in 2001. It replaced the June 10th “Sovereignty over Malvinas Islands” Day, which until then had commemorated the appointment of Luis Vernet as governor of the Islands by Buenos Aires in 1832.

The Argentine government is continuing with its efforts to identify the remains of all it’s fallen troops on the islands. Speaking at the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate the 649 fallen soldiers on April 2nd 2019, Secretary for Human Rights Claudio Avruj said “this… …is a very important and emotional event, which adds to the valuable and significant work carried out by the humanitarian mission to identify our Malvinas heroes”.

LONDON is the most dangerous place in the country according to your mother who last visited in 1981 for the Royal Wedding. This is what she thinks happens there:

Your phone will get stolen

Every resident of London has their phone stolen by youths on e-bikes at least five times a day. It’s in the Mail. Statistically, that means your phone will be snatched within 28 seconds of getting off the train then twice again before lunch. You’d be much better visiting somewhere safer, like Banbury or Dubai.

You’ll encounter a migrant

Not that there’s anything wrong with migrants, of course. They’re perfectly welcome to seek refuge in London so long as they stay there. It’s just they sell vapes and aren’t qualified to cut hair and I don’t understand why they can’t be migrants in their own country. It would save them the trouble of crossing the Channel.

You’ll commit knife crime

They’re all at it: wealth managers, PR girls, Tube drivers. Everyone in London indulges in knife crime on a daily basis. Honestly, before you’ve got to Cockfosters you’ll find a big deadly blade in your coat pocket and a burning desire to use it. Do you really want to stab someone just for having the wrong postcode when you could stay here in Uttoxeter?

You’ll question your entire identity

London is a diverse, multi-cultural melting pot, and worse they think that’s normal. Even just a day trip to the Big Smoke can have you reassessing whether you’re heterosexual or need to mix race. And the evidence shows that makes property prices go through the absolute roof.

You’ll get gentrified

You as you are? Not good enough for fancy Londoners. They’ll tear down your charming, homely features and replace them with a soulless glass-and-steel construction too expensive for anyone who isn’t a finance wanker to enjoy. Bad enough, but when you come back here you’ll look terribly out-of-place and your friends will rightly bully you.

The origins of the customs of the day are shrouded in mystery. Some scholars believe it is likely to be a relic of festivities held to mark the vernal equinox. These celebrations of the first days of spring began on 25 March and ended on 2 April. Certainly, there is some evidence to suggest that 1 April was observed as a general festival in pagan Britain.

More commonly, the customs are associated with the switch to the Gregorian calendar in France during the sixteenth century.

Historically, many parts of the world celebrated 1 April as New Year’s Day – due to its relationship with the start of Spring.

France was one of the first countries to adopt 1 January as their official New Year’s Day, by decree of Charles IX in 1564. This was before the 1582 adoption of the Gregorian calendar.

The gifts and traditions which had been the feature of the 1st of April switched to January 1st. However, many people either refused to accept the change or did not hear about the news for several years. Those who still celebrated April 1 were seen as ‘fools’ by the general populace, and fair game to be the butt of pranks and tricks were known as a “poisson d’avril” or “April fish.” 

The traditions spread to England and Scotland in the eighteenth century and was brought to the American colonies by both the English and French.

In 1814, Malta had become a crown colony of the British Empire after the British had help expel occupying French forces.

Following the heroic defense of the island during World War II, King George VI had promised the Maltese people self government which they gained in 1947. This eventually led to independence from Britain in 1964 and Malta becoming a republic later that year.

British forces remained on the island until 31 March 1979, when the Defence Treaty with Britain came to an end.

The removal of British was partly financial. When the Labour government came to power in Malta in 1971, it renegotiated the the lease agreement that allowed British forces to stay on the island until 1979 at an increased rent.

This withdrawal meant that for the first time in over a thousand years, Malta had no foreign military presence on its land.

The main events of the activities commemorating this date take place at the Freedom Day Monument at Vittoriosa and at the War Memorial in Floriana. In the afternoon the Grand Harbour hosts a competitive regatta.

Spiritual Baptist is a religion that developed from similar faiths in several Caribbean countries. It combines elements of Protestant Christianity with African customs and rituals. 

The Baptist faith in Trinidad is a legacy of the Merikin community. The ‘Merikins’ were African-American refugees of the War of 1812 – freed slaves who fought for the British against the Americans during the war of 1812. Following the end of the war, the Merikins established a community in the south of Trinidad. They brought the Baptist faith, having been part of evangelical sects common in places such as Georgia and Virginia.

In 1917, practising the religion was prohibited under the Shouter Prohibition Ordinance by the British colonial government. The reason given was that the noise created their services was disturbing the peace. The ordinance was introduced by then-attorney general Sir Henry Gollam who described the way members of the faith worshipped as an “unmitigated nuisance.” Another possible reason behind the ban is that the leaders of the other established religions saw the popularity of Spirtual Baptists as a threat.

For the next 34 years, it was against the law to take part in a Shouter Baptist service or use a property for that purpose and the penalty was a fine of $240.

Spiritual Baptists are sometimes referred to as ‘shouters’, as, during services, they shout, clap, sing loudly and ring bells. During the time of the prohibition on their religion, the Spiritual Baptists dropped the name Shouter Baptists in order to gain more respect for their religion. 

EVERY arsehole you have the misfortune to speak to now aggressively calls you ‘buddy’, Britain has confirmed.

The twats, who can work in any field from vehicle repair to fencing installation, now automatically add ‘buddy’ to their verbal interactions while making it clear it is in no way friendly.

Julian, not his real name, of Stevenage said: “When a man greets you with the salutation, ‘alright buddy?’ it is natural to assume fellow feeling. Natural and wrong.

“In my experience, the next stage will be to tell you you cannot park there, or this particular meadow would be an unwise place to walk through with children as he is exercising his pit bulls, or the quote he gave over the phone was ‘provisional’.

“What happened to calling someone ‘mate’ or ‘pal’ to be hostile? Why has rampant Americanism changed our language so ‘buddy’ is the new codeword of belligerence, spat out rapidly at the end of sentences designed to dishearten?

“You are not genuine when you call me ‘buddy’. We are not ‘buds’. I am not fooled. Though obviously I will continue to be polite and play along.”

Heat pump maintenance engineer Stephen Malley said: “Yeah looks like a bird’s nested in it. That’s gonna run you about three grand buddy.”

Barthélemy Boganda was a leading nationalist politician and the driving force in the creation of the Central African Republic in 1958.

Before his political career, Boganda had become the first African Roman Catholic priest in Ubangi-Shari, a French colony that is now part of the CAR. He became involved in politics and in 1946 he was elected to the French National Assembly, becoming the first representative of the CAR in the French government.

His strident anticolonial views led to him becoming disillusioned with the French political system and leaving the priesthood in 1949; and forming his own political party, the Social Evolution Movement of Black Africa.

Hugely popular, Boganda became the president of the Grand Council of French Equatorial Africa (which also included Chad, Gabon, and the French Congo) in 1957. His vision was for a pan-African movement to unite several African states.

Boganda became the first prime minister of the Central African Republic on 1 December 1958.

Barthélemy Boganda designed his country’s flag using the Pan-African colours and the colours of the French flag.

THERE she is, waiting for her coffee order as if she’s done nothing wrong knowing full well your boyfriend would be all over her if he were here, which he isn’t. Here’s how to cope:

Text him angrily

All that’s standing between you and your beloved straining at the leash to betray you? His absence. Not the love and fidelity he’s pledged. Not all you’ve shared together. Fire off a text to let him know what a fickle, shallow arsehole he is, but without giving away it’s because you’ve seen her. ‘F**k you for not putting the bins out’ should do it.

Itemise defects

Her hair is too shiny, her tote bag quote annoying. That skinny with tits that big is ridiculous. There’s no way things would work between him and her. He’d be intimidated by constant competition from other men and irritated by her ten step skincare routine. You could look like that if only you were completely shallow and self-obsessed.

Feel pity and contempt for their age difference

She must be a good six years younger than him. There was a time when that would have constituted a police matter. Even though they’d both be in their 20s, it would be best if he signed some kind of a register. She’s essentially a 25-year-old infant with a child’s brain and he’s sick for even considering it.

Shudder with horror at his attempt to flirt

God, even his first approach to this vision of loveliness would be a crash-landing. She’s dated exclusively millionaires or gangsters since she turned 18 and in comes a data analyst from Croydon, stuttering and salivating and all he can think of to ask is ‘Do you like bread?’ She wouldn’t even answer and he’d walk away all defeated. Snooty bitch.

Leave as if nothing happened

You’ve just completed an entire emotional arc your partner will never know about. Receding behind you sits a stranger who has unknowingly participated in a relationship stress test. He should be ashamed, and she should be served with a restraining order which specifies it’s for whoredom. You? You’ve triumphed. Hold your head up high.

Eskimo Pie was first created on January 24, 1922. This frozen treat consists of a vanilla ice cream bar covered in chocolate and has a stick in it that makes it easy to eat. However, this ice cream treat is no longer known as an Eskimo Pie.

During the 2020-21 George Floyd protests, this treat was changed to Edy’s Pie—the last name of Dreyer’s co-founder, Joseph Edy. That’s because the term “Eskimo” is considered to be a colonial name for the Aleut, Inuit, and Yupik peoples and is considered not only to be inappropriate but also a form of cultural appropriation. So maybe this holiday should be renamed Eat an Edy’s Pie Day.

In Russia the traditional “Eskimo Pie” recipe appeared in the early 1930s, quickly garnered a huge fanbase, across all ages & ethnicities, soon became a tasty staple!

Christian Nelson decided to invent this treat after he and his friend went to a corner drugstore, and he watched his friend debate whether he should buy ice cream or a chocolate bar. His friend ultimately decided to buy the ice cream, but the decision perplexed Mr. Nelson. He asked his friend why he didn’t buy both treats, and his friend responded that he simply didn’t have enough money to buy both. That is when Nelson decided to create a treat that combined chocolate and ice cream.

With Jess, your Gen X Tiktok beauty influencer who knows real women aren’t afraid to play possibly fatal Radiance Regime Roulette

LARGE pores are a natural part of aging, and if anyone sees them you’ve failed and should lock yourself in a hut for the rest of your life, like women used to.

The only way to keep your pores authentic and feminine is to obliterate them from view. Begin by going in with a spritz of ice water. As cold as you can stand. You need to be punished for daring to age.

This makes your pores visibly shrink, but too many of them are still wide open and emitting tiny rasping screams like my pleuritic uncle when I used to turn off his CPAP machine to tease him.

And, like Uncle Evelyn, I’m always asking myself ‘how much is too much when it comes to asbestos-based resurfacers’? This Golden Age skin technology is regaining classic status, thanks to Bella Hadid’s signature chin that shines like a messenger of god.

This week’s must-have is La Mer’s ‘Bestos in Show’ exfoliation system. Created with vintage pipe insulation harvested from Jayne Mansfield’s Pink Palace on Sunset Boulevard, this blasts Golden Age glamour right into your deepest most hidden layers.

It’s a steal at £529.99 in Space NK this month for 6ml, and you won’t even need all of that for a single treatment to mute the intolerable howling of your pores that keeps me up at night until only certain videos you can watch on the darknet can lull me to sleep.

One coat and your face is silent and smooth, like a sexy newborn salamander sliding down your hungry throat. You’re ready to be unobtrusive to men again.

So get out there besties and ignore the haters! By which I mean your inner voices, and the terrible things they will you to do! Be iconic!

In 1886, Myanmar (then called Burma) came under British control. From the earliest days of colonisation, there was a strong feeling of resentment against the rule of the British.

During World War II, Some Burmese saw the rise of Japan as an opportunity to gain independence from Britain. Aung San was a prominent figure in the independence movement, but he had been exiled to China. He collaborated with Japan, having been convinced they would make Burma an independent nation if they helped drive out the British.

With Burmese nationalist support, Japan took control of Burma in 1942. However Aung San came to realise that the Japanese had no intention of giving independence to Burma and on March 23rd 1945, he led the Burmese army in a rebellion against the Japanese that helped the Allied forces remove the Japanese from the region.

Not surprisingly, the key event on this day is a large parade by the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar military in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar.

Originally this holiday was called Resistance Day, but it was renamed to Armed Forces Day by the Tatmadaw.

In 1947, India was partitioned by the British, creating the ‘Dominion of Pakistan’, which was two separate regions to the northwest and northeast of India. The new dominion was governed by West Pakistan, which led to friction between the two regions, with the first signs of a movement for autonomy for East Pakistan appearing in 1949.

In the 1970 general elections, the Bangla-based Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman won an overall majority, but the West Pakistani regime was reluctant to hand over power. On March 25th 1970, Pakistani troops were used to quell the growing unrest.

This led to the Independence of Bangladesh being declared by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on March 26th 1971 and marked the start of the war of Independence. In November 1970, India entered the war, supporting East Pakistan. This led to victory for East Pakistan on 16 December 1970 (marked by the Victory Day holiday).

On gaining its independence, East Pakistan was renamed Bangladesh.

IT would just be like so wrong to deprive teenagers like me of my socials because I have grew up with it and there is all what you learn from it, right?

Social media is a vital part of young peoples life’s nowadays. In the future we will need to know technology to get a job. If your boss tells you to watch TikTok and you don’t know what that is, you’ll get the sack. Thats just the Real World.

In any case AI will have taken all the jobs and its all vibe coding now. What point am I making here? Dunno.

Social media is also important for our education. I’m reading comments on Insta all day and thats learning me good spelling. It would be wrong to deprive us of such a voluble learning resauce.

Anyway its like totally addictive so we can’t stop using it if we wanted to. Is that actually more of a bad thing about it? I don’t know because at school I’m usually on Snapchat instead of learning how to construct an argument. The Government needs to do something about that.

Also banning me off social media would be wrong because its how young people communicate these days, you feel me? I mean, yeah, mostly we just put emojis next to videos, but sometimes we really open up emotionally and use a sad face.

Of course theres harmful content out there, but you can just make it illegal with a law. Someone made a fake nude of a girl in my form group, and I’m like totally against that. Its wrong to compare ordinary women to professional porn stars with much better tits.

So after reading the arguments I’ve done here, I think you’ll agree we must not ban under-16s from social media. Even if its just so we stay online in our bedrooms rather than talking to you about our clueless bullshit.

In 1821, the Greeks rose up against the Ottoman Empire which had occupied Greece for almost 400 years, leading to the war of independence.

Bishop Germanos of Patras raised the Greek flag at the monastery of Agia Lavras, inciting the Peloponnese to rise against the oppressors.

While the exact date probably may not have been March 25th, it is acknowledged to have occurred in late March and it was gradually associated with the religious Feast of the Annunciation.

On this day in the Orthodox calendar, the archangel Gabriel appeared to the maiden Mary and informed her that she was pregnant with the divine child.

The first modern Greek state was founded in 1828 under the name “Hellenic State” and consisted of the Peloponnese and part of Central Greece. The first governor was John Kapodistrias who founded schools and orphanages and helped make great advances in the development of the Greek economy and education.

Kapodistrias is still honoured in Greece today; the Greek euro coin of 20 cents bears his face.

This Argentinian public holiday is held on March 24th, the anniversary of the coup d’état of 1976 that overthrew President Isabel Peron and brought the National Reorganization Process to power. The coup installed the bloodiest dictatorship in the history of the country, led by General Jorge Rafael Videla, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera and Brigadier-General Orlando Ramón Agosti.

It was this that started a period of state terrorism aimed at left-wing guerrillas, political groups, and socialists.

During over seven years of dictatorship, Argentine security forces, along with right-wing death squads such as Triple A, hunted down anyone believed to be associated with socialism, left-wing Peronism, or the Montoneros movement. While nearly 10,000 people are known to have ‘disappeared’ under the junta, the true number may have been much higher as so many documents and records were destroyed by the military. The actual figure may have been over 30,000 students, activists, trade unionists, writers, journalists, artists and any citizens suspected of being left-wing activists were kidnapped, tortured and disappeared. The military junta silenced any political or ideological dissidents, even those seen as antithetical to its neoliberal economic policies.

The period lasted until December 1983 when democratic elections were held to install a new president.

The commemoration was sanctioned as Law 25633 by the Argentine National Congress on August 1st 2002, and promulgated by the Executive Branch on August 22nd of the same year. However, it was not implemented as a public national holiday until 2006.

The day is marked by peaceful rallies and marches by those who lost loved ones during the period. Hundreds of thousands of citizens, relatives of the disappeared people, members of social movements, human rights organizations and left-wing political parties march to the Plaza de Mayo in the capital Buenos Aires to commemorate the victims of the last dictatorship and demand justice for the crimes against humanity committed by the State during that period.