Short answers, pulled from the story.
The name Caribbean derives from the Caribs, an Amerindian ethnic group historically present in the Lesser Antilles. The region's true story is far more intricate than the label suggests, encompassing thousands of islands, cays, islets, reefs, and banks that form the West Indies.
The oldest evidence of human presence in the Caribbean dates back 7,000 years to southern Trinidad at Banwari Trace. These early settlers, known as Ortoiroid, were followed by waves of migration that would fundamentally reshape the demographic landscape of the islands.
Haiti became the first republic in the Caribbean in 1804 following a slave rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue in 1791. Neighboring Santo Domingo would attain its independence on three separate occasions in 1821, 1844, and 1865.
Most of the British holdings in the Caribbean achieved political independence between the 1960s and 1980s, starting with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago in 1962. Subsequent independence dates include British Guiana in 1966, Barbados in 1966, The Bahamas in 1973, and St. Kitts and Nevis in 1983.
The Puerto Rico Trench marks the deepest point in all of the Atlantic Ocean and is located within the waters of the Caribbean Sea. The region also hosts large, migratory schools of fish, turtles, and coral reef formations.
The Caribbean Common Market and Community, or CARICOM, was created in 1973 by advances of the English-speaking Caribbean nations. The Association of Caribbean States was founded in July 1994 to maintain regionalism within the Caribbean on issues unique to the Caribbean Basin.