Curated playlist
Former Spanish colonies
- PalauPalau is an island country made up of roughly 340 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, with a total land area of only 466 square kilometres. That makes it the sixteenth smallest nation in the world. Its own name for the islands is Belau,…
- Federated States of MicronesiaThe Federated States of Micronesia has about 702 km2 of land but nearly 3 million km2 of ocean.
- GuamA German raider exploded in Guam's Apra Harbor in 1917 after its captain refused to surrender it.
- CuraçaoCuraçao is a Dutch Caribbean island country about 65 km north of Venezuela, and in 1929 that short distance proved dangerous. A Venezuelan rebel commander named Rafael Simón Urbina arrived with 250 soldiers and captured the island's fort.…
- El SalvadorEl Salvador made bitcoin legal tender in 2021, the first country to do so.
- GuatemalaGuatemala's name once meant a single city, not a country.
- HaitiHaiti is the only country in history established by a slave revolt.
- Caroline IslandsOn Yap in the Caroline Islands, stone discs up to 12 feet wide serve as money. A stone can change owners unmoved.
- Dominican RepublicThe Dominican Republic holds both the tallest mountain peak in the Caribbean and its lowest point. Pico Duarte rises 3098 metres above sea level, and snow has been seen on its summit on rare occasions. Lake Enriquillo, a salt lake, lies 45…
- PeruPeru's Inca began as one small, minor ethnic group from Cusco.
- Puerto RicoPuerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917, yet they cannot vote for president.
- UruguayA former guerrilla who spent nearly 15 years in prison became Uruguay's president in 2009.
- JamaicaJamaica has sometimes been called the world's least populous cultural superpower. Reggae and Rastafari began there.
- ArgentinaArgentina's name was never Spanish, and it means made of silver in Italian. It first appeared on a Venetian map in 1536.
- Kingdom of SardiniaThe Kingdom of Sardinia began in 1297 as a kingdom on paper only. A pope offered it to Aragon's king as a bribe.
- New MexicoThe name New Mexico is older than the country of Mexico. Spanish explorers used it in 1581.
- Trinidad and TobagoTrinidad and Tobago is the southernmost archipelagic country in the Caribbean, yet its larger island counts geologically as part of South America. Trinidad rests on that continent's shelf, and in ancient times it was physically joined to…
- ChileThe Inca Empire's conquest stopped at a river in what is now central Chile. The Mapuche held the line at the Maule.
- TexasTexas took its name from a Caddo word meaning 'friend.' The Spanish first applied it to the Caddo people.
- VenezuelaVenezuela has the largest known oil reserves on the planet, yet more than 7.9 million of its citizens have fled.
- LouisianaNapoleon sold all of Louisiana to the United States for less than three cents an acre.
- ArizonaArizona has had five female governors, more than any state. In 1998, women won all five top statewide offices.
- ColombiaColombia is named after Christopher Columbus. The name was first meant for the entire New World.
- CaliforniaCalifornia probably got its name from a Spanish novel about a gold island. The book was published in 1510.
- PhilippinesThe Philippines records about five earthquakes a day, though most are too weak to be felt.
- MexicoMexico domesticated maize, the tomato and beans, three plants that feed much of the world.
- CubaIn 1956, Fidel Castro and about eighty supporters landed in Cuba from the yacht Granma to start a rebellion.
- FloridaFlorida's position between two bodies of water shaped its whole history.
- ColoradoColorado is a landlocked state in the Mountain West, and its southwest corner is a spot found nowhere else in the United States. The Four Corners Monument marks the shared boundary of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. It is the only…