Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-07-31/Gallery

Gallery

Independence days, national holidays, and football – all in July

Canada Day, eh?
Food festival cook-off on Peru's Fiestas Patrias
Fourth of July: boisterous, noisy, and centered on a Chinese invention
Independence Day in Vanuatu
Venezuelan cavalry at Independence Day parade in New York

July seems to be a traditional month for nations obtaining their independence, breaking away, or merging. And let's not forget France whose national holiday is always on July 14. It might not be directly related to independence from colonialism, but rather the unity of the French people. It's is one of the biggest worldwide celebrated national annual events. Plus the very next day they had another huge party in the streets across the mainland and all their many overseas territories: winning the FIFA World Cup – for the second time.

No less than 22 countries celebrate independence day in July:

Algeria from France
Bahamas from the UK
Belgium from the Netherlands
Burundi from Belgium
Canada from the UK
Cape Verde from Portugal
Comoros from France
Kiribati from the UK
Liberia from the American Colonization Society
Malawi from the UK
Maldives from the UK
Mauritania from France
Peru from Spain
Rwanda from Belgium
São Tomé and Príncipe from Portugal
Solomon Islands from the UK
Somalia from Italy & the UK
South Sudan from Sudan
Vanuatu from France and the UK
Venezuela from Spain
Oh, yes, one more – the United States from the Kingdom of Great Britain

The Signpost joins them in celebrating.

In this issue

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I don't think Canada Day (aka Dominion Day) should be listed as an "Independence Day". It strikes me as more a day of Canadians joining together to become a more important part of the British Empire. Note that I'm not a Canadian and I expect a few Canadians might disagree. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:29, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's gone back and forth; see Talk:List of national independence days. I liked the picture and, heck, Canada needs more exposure. ☆ Bri (talk) 07:06, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's nice to know that people actually read the Gallery page, Smallbones, it rarely gets any feedback. Let's have a bit of latitude for our columns, though, or we'll just drive away what few contributors we have left to keep the magazine running ;) France is on this page too but it's nothing to do with independence either. The main thing to understand is that worldwide, July is a month for many large national events, and that's our focus here. As a Brit, I have to live with the fact that The United Kingdom has no national day holiday marked and/or celebrated for its formal founding date or any of its historically important events, and neither do any of its constituent countries. Even worse, England as the major one, is the only one not to even have its own assembly! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:07, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's just when Britain liked to handle letting go of various bits of its empire? Summer recess so no parliament to disrupt the handover. Nosebagbear (talk)

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