Five Things You Dont Know About Africa

Five Things You Don't Know About Africa 1. Africa is not a country Okay. You do know this, but people frequently refer to Africa as though it were a country. Sometimes, people will actually say, â€Å"Countries like India and Africa†¦Ã¢â‚¬ , but more often they simply refer to Africa as though the entire continent faced similar problems or had similar cultures or histories. There are, however, 54 sovereign states in Africa plus the disputed territory of Western Sahara. 2. Africa is not all poor, rural, or overpopulated Africa is an incredibly diverse continent politically, socially, and economically. To get an idea of how people’s lives and opportunities differ across Africa, consider that in 2013: Life expectancy ranged from 45 (Sierra Leone) to 75 (Libya Tunisia)Children per family ranged from 1.4 (Mauritius) to 7.6 (Niger)Population density (people per square mile) ranged from 3 (Namibia) to 639 (Mauritius)GDP per capita in current US dollars ranged from 226 (Malawi) to 11,965 (Libya)Cell phones per 1000 people ranged from 35 (Eritrea) to 1359 (Seychelles) (All above data from the World Bank) 3. There were empires and kingdoms in Africa long before the modern era The most famous ancient kingdom, of course, is Egypt, which existed in one form or another, from roughly 3,150 to 332 B.C.E. Carthage is also well known due to its wars with Rome, but there were numerous other ancient kingdoms and empires, including Kush-Meroe in present-day Sudan and Axum in Ethiopia, each of which lasted for over 1,000 years. Two of the more famous states of what is sometimes referred to as the medieval era in African history are the Kingdoms of Mali (c.1230-1600) and Great Zimbabwe (c. 1200-1450). These were both rich states involved in intercontinental trade. Archeological digs at Zimbabwe have revealed coins and commodities from as far away as China, and these are but a few examples of the wealthy and powerful states that flourished in Africa before European colonization. 4.  With the exception of Ethiopia, every African country has English, French, Portuguese, or Arabic as one of their official languages Arabic has long been spoken widely in northern and western Africa. Then, between 1885 and 1914, Europe colonized all of Africa with the exception of Ethiopia and Liberia. One consequence of this colonization was that after independence, the former colonies kept the language of their colonizer as one of their official languages, even if it was a second language for many citizens.The Republic of Liberia was not technically colonized, but it had been founded by African-American settlers in 1847 and so already had English as its official language.This left the Kingdom of Ethiopia as the only African kingdom not to be colonized, though it was briefly conquered by Italy in the lead-up to World War II. Its official language is Amharic, but many students study English as a foreign language in school. 5. There are currently two female Presidents in Africa Another common misconception is that women are oppressed across Africa. There are cultures and countries where women do not have equal rights or receive respect equal to that of men, but there are other states where women are legally equal to men and have broken the glass ceiling of politics – a feat the United States of America has yet to match. In Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has served as president since 2006, and in the Central African Republic, Catherine Samba-Panza was selected the Acting President leading into the 2015 elections. Previous female heads of state include, Joyce Banda (President, Malawi), Sylvie Kinigi (Acting President, Burundi), and Rose Francine Ragombà © (Acting President, Gabon).

How to Write the Date in a Document

How to Write the Date in a Document How to Write the Date in a Document In an era of calendar apps, we don’t have to write the date down often. But this does mean that it’s easy to forget the rules for writing dates in different places. It’s lucky, then, that we’re here to help! Writing the Date in Full In formal writing, always write the date in full when it is part of a sentence. This will usually involve giving the day of the month, the month, and the year: The meeting will take place on April 21, 2019. Note that the year follows after a comma. You can, however, use a few different formats. This can include omitting the year or adding the day of the week. In addition, you can use ordinal instead of cardinal numbers when writing the date out in full with the day before the month: Thursday, October 3 Tuesday, August 6, 2019 The 21st of April, 2019 The letters that follow the numbers above are a little old fashioned, but they are not incorrect. You may also see these numbers formatted as superscript. Whichever date format you use, however, make sure to apply it consistently for all dates in your document. Abbreviating the Date In less formal writing, or when the date is not part of the main text in a document, you can abbreviate the month to save space. For instance, â€Å"August 20, 2019† could be abbreviated to â€Å"Aug. 20, 2019.† The same can be done with days (e.g., â€Å"Tuesday† becomes â€Å"Tue.†). Typically, the first three letters are used as the abbreviation for any day or month. However, some style guides (e.g., MLA) recommend only doing this for months with more than five letters. Writing the Date as Numerals You can also write the date as numerals instead of words. The format to use here is month/day/year. There are, however, a number of ways to do this. Variations include: Whether to put a â€Å"0† before single-digit months and days Whether to write the year in full or just the last two digits How to punctuate the date For example, we could write March 4, 2019 in any of the following ways: 03/04/2019 03.04.19 3-4-2019 The best format is a matter of preference, as long as you use it consistently. However, you should also keep clarity in mind. For instance, if referring to something that could have happened in either 1902 or 2002, you should always give the year in full to prevent confusion! International Date Formats Finally, we should give a few thoughts to the rest of the world. After all, the month/day/year format used in the US is not really used anywhere else (except for the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands). For some reason, the Marshall Islands tourism board focuses more on the beaches than the date format. Around the rest of the world, the most common format is day/month/year. A few places also use a year/month/day format (e.g., China), but this is very rare in English. This variation is especially important to remember with numeric dates, as it can be easy to get confused unless you know the format. For instance, â€Å"4/10/2019† would refer to April 10 in the US, but it would refer to October 4 in Britain or France. So make sure to check the date format being used when dealing with other countries, otherwise you might be very early or very late for appointments in Europe!