A to Z Challenge Archives – Page 4 of 53

April 19, 2026April 19, 2026

P is for Panama

The country of Panama, on the isthmus situated between Costa Rica and Colombia.

Fast Facts

Named for: Possibly “butterflies” or “bannaba”=distant place or “place of many fish,” both in indigenous tongue.
Capital: Panama City
Long/Lat: 8.6 N/79.3 W, only 6 hours or 3000 miles SE of Castro Valley. Very close to the equator.
Population: 4.3 million, 65 Castro Valleys
Size: 29,000 sq mi, or 1600 Castro Valleys
Avg temp in April: 90 F/32 C (humidity 85%/ CV usually around 70%)
Median household income: $7,800
Ethnicity: 65% mestizo (mixed), 12% indigenous, 10% Black, 7% white.
Main industries: Trade, commerce, shrimp, copper, hydropower

Sometimes there is serendipity; the stars align. Things can be helped along by choice, but happy accidents may begin the process. Today is the day to write a post on “P” and today, as it happens, we are going through the Panama Canal. The A to Z challenge meets the travel blogs! Due to this exciting circumstance, I will write two posts. Today, I will cover the country of Panama in the same fashion as before, A through O. Tomorrow we will talk about the reason for the trip: going through the Canal.

The Most Ancient History of Panama

Today, let’s focus on early pre-Canal history. Really early, 200 million years ago: Pangaea.

If long-lived intelligent beings were to look through a telescope at this part of Earth, they might ask, Can’t they make up their minds? First, it’s all land, then it’s all sea, then land, then sea, then land… In other words: Pangaea, the Central American Seaway (CAS), the isthmus, the canal, then all the bridges. Humans want all the ways to go, sometimes through the water and sometimes on the roads.

April 15, 2026April 15, 2026

N is for North Macedonia

North Macedonia is a landlocked country in the Balkans, i.e., the old Kingdom of Macedonia. Graphic from Countryreports.org.

Fast Facts

Named for: Macedonia means “tall people” according to ancient Greeks
Capital: Skopje
Long/Lat: 42.0 N/21.2 E, 6500 mi & 13 hrs East of CV
Population: 1.8 million or 27 CVs, big for a “small” country
Size: 9800 sq mi, 540 CVs
Avg temp in April: 64 F/16 F, similar
Median household income: $7,000
Ethnicity: 55% Macedonian, 24% Albanian, 4% Turks
Main industries: Chemicals, Manufacturing. Embargoes and trade conflicts are common.

Sadly, there is no South Macedonia. Neither is there an East or West Macedonia, and when Macedonia gained independence in 1991 and tried to be the whole Macedonia, the Greeks blpcked them. It’s pretty ironic, since the Macedonians once conquered Greece, and the Greeks have never conquered Macedonia.

Those Greeks do act as if they run the show. They think they invented everything, and slap labels on things like the Pythagorean theorem (Pythagoras was great, but the Babylonians knew about the right-triangle relationships way before that) or the Metonic cycle (Babylonians again) and so on. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian emperor who spread “Greek” culture into the east, was tutored by a Greek, but he wasn’t Greek. Such a long time ago, who pays attention?

April 14, 2026April 14, 2026

M is for Malta

Malta, the two tiny islands south of Sicily and west of Tunis. Graphic by Nuclear Vacuum.

What is it?
The stuff that dreams are made of…
Sam Spade, describing the Maltese falcon in “The Maltese Falcon”

Fast Facts

Named for: Greek meli (μέλη) for honeyed. There are native bees.
Capital: Valletta
Long/Lat: 35.5 N/14.3 E , 6700 mi East/11 hours East of CV. Nearly directly south of Liechtenstein.
Population: 520,000, or 9x Castro Valleys
Size: 122 sq mi, 8x CV. The population density and size of about 10 CVs.
Avg temp in April: 62 F/16 C (CV-like)
Median household income: $60,000, also high on a world standard
Ethnicity: 78% Maltese, meaning a mix of Italian, Spanish, Arab, French etc.
Main industries: Tourism, banking. In theory, limestone, but not too much.

Unlike Liechtenstein from yesterday, Malta is a tiny dot of great strategic importance. It’s in the Mediterranean, just south of Sicily and Italy but just East of Tunis and North Africa. Tunis was the springboard for the Phoenicians, who advanced sailing and the alphabet, but they were more traders than conquerors. The Romans took over in their turn, as did Hannibal and the Carthaginians. The Goths and Visigoths came through, followed by Islam sweeping across southern Europe and northern Africa. And that’s just the first half of their story of civilization.

Aleccio, Matteo Perez d’; The Siege of Malta: Attack on the Post of the Castilian Knights, 21 August 1565; National Maritime Museum.

It was a place of launching dreams of conquest or re-conquest. When the Crusaders made their move to “take back” land, they pushed from Europe south, establishing footholds in the Mediterranean from Venice and the Riviera to islands like Malta and Cyprus going down to Jerusalem. There were multiple waves of Crusades in the Middle Ages, and, at some point, a group of Benedictine monks built a hospital to minister to the wounded and sick Christian Crusaders. This was the Order of the Knights Hospitallers, affiliated with St. John. Their surcoat with the white cross against the red background is the inverse to the Knight’s Templar, but both captured the idea of a monastic order, beginning from ministering to the sick and needy, yet grounded in a military base.