We’ve learned a bit about Costa Rica of the past two weeks, so today let’s wrap it up with a few more details and a brief – very brief – history.
Do you know what the major industries in Costa Rica are? I would have said tourism, but building microprocessors and food processing are the two biggest industries. I knew that coffee was a major product in most all Central and South American countries, but the second largest for Costa Rica is bananas followed by sugar and pineapples. The Gross Domestic Products is approximately $45 billion and $7 billion of that comes from exporting the above and other items.
On his first trip to the Americas Christopher Columbus, in 1502, became the first European to set foot in Costa Rica. The natives were not so friendly and made it difficult for Chris and his friends to establish cities until 1563 when Cartago was founded. It remained a Spanish territory until independence was won in September of 1821. Now, every year on September 15 the Costa Rican Ticos and Ticas celebrate Independence Day…their biggest major national holiday.
While it has no standing army – one of the few countries in the world who don’t – there have been few threats to this democratic nation. One took place in 1917 under a dictatorship and the other in 1948 when rebels revolted and gave the presidency to Jose Figurers (photo at left). Under Figurers, a new constitution was written and all were given the right to vote. Today, Costa Rica’s President is Laura Chinchilla (photo below). Great name, isn’t it?
See you next week…when we’ll look at Argentina.
Interesting post to read. It's neat to learn about the history of countries! I can now say I learned something new today about Costa Rica!
ReplyDeleteI wonder when the United States will have a female president.
ReplyDeleteThis post had very interesting things to learn. I think it would be interesting to see how Americans would react to a female president.
ReplyDelete