Double-click on any word and see its definition from Cambridge Dictionaries Online.
Simón Bolívar was a South American nationalist and general, and one of the greatest heroes of the Latin American wars of independence. He had a dream of uniting all South American, Central American and Caribbean countries and turning them into a single, economically independent country, which he had planned to name Estados Unidos de Latinoamérica, or The United States of Latin America. Bolivia was named after him, as well as many other places in South America, the national currency of Venezuela, Donald Duck’s dog, and a Canadian-made coffee liqueur, Bolivar Liqueur. Source: Wikipedia
In Oct. 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Tutsi rebels in exile in Uganda, invaded in an attempt to overthrow the Hutu-led Rwandan government. Peace accords were signed in Aug. 1993, calling for a coalition government. But after the downing of a plane in April 1994 that killed the presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi, deep-seated ethnic violence erupted. Read more
Joan of Arc of Mongolia (1989): directed and written by Ulrike Ottinger and starring Christoph Eichhorn, Irm Hermann and Xu Re Huar. Source: IMDb
Two: the number of “doubly land-locked countries” (countries whose only neighbours are also land-locked). Liechtenstein is bordered by Switzerland to the west and Austria to the east. Uzbekistan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north and north-west, Turkmenistan to the south, Afghanistan to the south-west, and Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to the east.
Macedonia: in Spanish this means “fruit salad”.
Radio Ethiopia/Abyssinia by Patti Smith
See lyrics
Fine Swiss Weisswurst
See recipe
MALI is the only country whose name is an anagram of the capital city of another country - LIMA, Peru.
AFGHANISTAN and KYRGHISTAN, (as well as TUVALU) are the only countries with three consecutive letters in their names.
QAZAQ (an alternative spelling of "Kazakh") not only consists of alternating vowels and consonants, but is also a palindrome.
Source: Word Oddities
Nobel prize for literature winners from land-locked countries
Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler (Switzerland) in 1919 "in special appreciation of his epic, Olympian Spring".
Jaroslav Seifert (Czechoslovakia) in 1984 "for his poetry which endowed with freshness, sensuality and rich inventiveness provides a liberating image of the indomitable spirit and versatility of man"
Imre Kertész (Hungary) in 2002 "for writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history"
Source: Nobel prizes
Proverbs from land-locked countries
No one says his own buttermilk is sour. (Afghanistan)
The earth does not shake when the flea coughs. (Austria)
A prudent man does not make the goat his gardener. (Hungary)
The cry of the hyena and the loss of the goat are one. (Niger)
Source: Creative Proverbs
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