Historical Tidbits Archives – Page 3 of 58

April 4, 2026April 9, 2026

D is for Dominica

Dominica circled in red, graphic by Aoeuidhtns.

Named for: Sunday, the day Columbus sailed by
Capital: Roseau
Long/Lat: 15.2 N/61.2 W, 4000 miles or 8 hours east of Castro Valley
Population: 72,000, 1.1 CVs
Size: 290 sq mi, 10 CVs (less dense)
Avg temp in April: 87 F/23 C phew!
Median household income: ~$4,000
Ethnicity: 85% Afro-Dominican, 4% Kalinago/Caribe, <1% European
Main industries: Small agriculture, growing financial services (offshore banking/tax havens)

Dominica, fortunately, stopped practicing cannibalism. If they ever did, which is doubtful. Even so, historians as late as the 1960s were still tossing off lines like, “By the middle of the sixteenth century, however, the Caribs had almost ceased eating Christian Europeans, for on one occasion all who had dined on a Spanish friar had fallen deathly ill or died.”

Dominica is the fourth small country in my A-Z series, another island and definitely not the last. It was named by Columbus on his second journey to the New World, the first island he sailed by on Sunday, November 3, 1493. Not a very enterprising name, since Dominica means Sunday. The naming conventions here seem particularly uninspired. Columbus also named islands Ferdinanda, Isabela, Juana (their daughter), and San Salvador (Holy Savior). I suppose we should be lucky he didn’t just number them, or Jamaica would be Dieciocho.

April 1, 2026April 9, 2026

A is for Andorra

Where in the world is Andorra? Graphic by Bosonic dressing.

Note: Today begins the first of the April A-Z challenge. See Running a Small Country for more details.

Fast Facts

Named for: The “Andosins” i.e. Big People or Water People or “land covered with bushes” or “the wild valleys of hell” as in Andor in the Bible. That is, nobody really knows.
Capital: Andorra la Vella (Vella being city in Catalan)
Long/Lat: 42.30 N/1.30 E. 6,000 miles east of Castro Valley, 10 hours.
Population: 89,000 or 1.3 Castro Valleys
Size: 467 sq mi or 30 Castro Valleys
Avg temp in April: 55 F, very similar to CV
Median income: 28,000€ ($30k)
Ethnicity: 35% Spanish, 32% Andorran, 10% Portuguese
Main industries: Tourism, Banking (tax haven)

Andorra is a carve-out in the Pyrenees, the mountain border separating France and Spain, a roundish dot, balancing the stability between those two large personalities. It’s far larger than my Castro Valley, but more sparsely populated. That’s due to the mountains: average elevation is 6500 ft. Mountains mean ski resorts, which explains the 20 millions of tourists per year, 117 tourists per inhabitant.

It’s also a tax haven, meaning taxes so low that international companies are headquartered there. Nothing like wealthy people skiing after they’ve finished their banking. Meanwhile, the people serving them coffee earn a pittance. Same as it ever was.

Andorra boasts lovely mountain skiing. And low taxes. Photo from wikimedia.

March 16, 2026March 16, 2026

Everyone is Green (Not Necessarily Irish)

Celtic knots in the Book of Kells. Photo at Wikipedia.

Author’s Note: An oldie but a goodie–perfect for the month of March.

Ninety percent of Americans are not Irish. Thus, it has always confused me that everyone wants to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. If your heritage is Irish, more power to you, please feel free to immerse yourself in your culture. If you are in Ireland, I have no doubt it was a gay old time. But why in the sam heck is March 17 entrenched as an annual holiday? Every U.S. calendar in the month of March has a giant shamrock symbol on it. Yet, the vast majority of us aren’t Irish, and we don’t all get our own cultural holidays, do we?

Is Everyone Really Irish in America on St. Patrick’s Day?

It particularly never ceases to amaze me when my diverse Bay Area colleagues, whose English is heavily tinged with accents from the Philippines, Ecuador, Hong Kong, and Mumbai, remind me that we will all need to wear green. What color do I get to wear on Polish heritage day? When is Diwali again? What’s that traditional German dish that we all eat on …. really, there’s no German-American day? That’s particularly surprising when Germans comprise nearly 17% of our ancestry.