Every Day Is Special: Principe

Showing posts with label Principe. Show all posts

November 26 - Argel Accord Day in Saõ Tóme and Príncipe

Posted on November 26, 2018

I've talked before about the 1974 Carnation Revolution, in the European nation of Portugal. This was a non-violent coup that overthrew the Estado Novo dictatorship and ushered in a democratic government for Portugal.

It was amazing and wonderful and even colorful - because the people who had poured into the streets to celebrate the end of the dictatorship put carnations in the muzzles of soldiers' guns and in the buttonholes of their uniforms.

But what does the Carnation Revolution have to do with the African nation of Saõ Tóme and Príncipe?

Well, almost half of Portugal's budget, before the coup, was being spent on trying to hold onto the nation's African colonies. There was no end in sight, and most Portuguese people preferred to spend the nation's money in more...positive ways!

So after the Carnation Revolution, Portuguese colonial rulers left the various colonies, and those African nations finally had a chance for independence and self-rule!

The Argel Accords were documents promising to allow self-rule. Today is the day that the people of Saõ Tóme and Príncipe celebrate the signing of those documents and also honor all the Portuguese citizens whose demonstrations against the Estado Novo regime resulted in their own nation's independence.

Check out some of the amazing sights of Saõ Tóme and Príncipe:

Also on this date:

Anniversary of the premiere of Casablanca

Birthday of Medal-of-Honor-winning surgeon Mary Edwards Walker

Anniversary of the first European spotting Maui

Anniversary of the first exhibition of a lion in America

Proclamation Day in Mongolia

Canada-on-Ice Day

Day of the Covenant in the Baha'i Faith

Birthday of inventor Willis Carrier

Anniversary of the death of illustrator and children's author Gyo Fujikawa

Cider Monday

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

November holidays
November birthdays
Historical anniversaries in November

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December holidays
December birthdays
Historical anniversaries in December

September 30 - Agricultural Reform Day in São Tomé and Principe

Posted on September 30, 2017

The fact that European countries colonized so much of the world has had so-so-so-so-SO many consequences - mostly problems that continue, in many cases, today.

And, of course, slavery is a Big Evil that often accompanied colonization - and that often made successful colonization possible! - and slavery, needless to say, has had terrible consequences that still echo today.

The two tiny African islands of São Tomé and Principe banded together into one nation, which became independent of Portugal in 1975. At that time, almost all of the agricultural land was tied up in Portuguese-owned plantations (many of them growing cocoa). Back in the bad-old-days, the plantations grew sugar and depended on slave labor. But even with slavery long gone, in 1975, it still seemed pretty unfair that only a few owned so much.

Agricultural reform in the new nation consisted of the government taking control of the plantations. Since the 70s, some of the state-owned land has gone back to being privately owned, but things are more fair, democratic, and stable now than in the teeny nation's past, and more than many African nations.

Here is an export treemap, created to show São Tomé and Principe's reality a few years ago (in 2012). You can see that cocoa production still dominates the nation: