Suriname Independence Day

This day marks the country’s independence from the Netherlands in 1975. In 1593 Spanish explorers visited the country and named it. In the first half of the 17th century the Spanish, Dutch, British and French all made failed attempts to establish settlements partly due to resistance from the local tribes. Eventually it came under Dutch control in 1667, and it became a plantation economy that first relied on a high number of African slaves and then indentured slaves from Asia, making it one of the most ethnically diverse nations on the continent. After World War Two, it began to assert its political identity with the first elections taking place in 1945 and universal suffrage being adopted in 1948.