NIE Special Report

05
Constitution Day: Mexico. On this day in 1917 Mexico adopted its first constitution. November 20 marks the anniversary of this holiday.

06
Bob Marley (1945-1981): Jamaican. Musician. Marley was the most influential star of reggae, a Jamaican form of popular music that draws on Afro-Caribbean dance and American soul music and was one of the first musical idioms from the Third World to become popular in Europe and the United States. Reggae is associated with Rastafarianism, a faith founded by Marcus Garvey, whose adherents see the late Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as a divine figure and themselves as black Hebrews exiled in the Babylon of western colonial capitalism. Marleyis intense compelling presence and the stirring messages of his songs brought him the acclaim of international audiences and influenced singers and songwriters throughout the Western Hemisphere, Europe and Africa.

06
Waitangi Day: New Zealand. This commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 between the indigenous Maoris of New Zealand and the European colonists, providing for British sovereignty in exchange for guaranteed possession by the Maoris of their lands.

07
Lantern Festival (Yuan-hsiao): China. This celebrates the end of the New Year season. In Taiwan people make elaborate lanterns to hang in the temples and hold contests to choose the most beautiful one. They also write riddles on the lanterns and compete to s *solve them. In the Peopleis Republic of China the lanterns are hung in public parks.

08
Martin Buber (1878-1965): Jewish Austrian. Theologian. Buber developed a theology of Jewish existentialism that emphasized a strong relationship between God and the individual. His most famous work is I and Thou.

08
Dawes General Allotment Act (1887): United States. This law dissolved American Indian tribes as legal entities and divided formerly tribal lands among individual property owners.

09
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906): African American. Dunbar became nationally known for his poems and tales, many of them depicting the life of Blacks on southern plantations. He also wrote essays protesting the conditions of Black Americans.

12
Tadeusz (Thaddeus) Kosciuszko (1746-1817): Polish. Soldier and statesman. As a colonel in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, Kosciuszko planned the fortifications that helped defeat the British at the battle of Saratoga. For his service to the cause of American independence, Congress awarded him American citizenship. After returning to Poland in 1784 and becoming a major general in the Polish army in 1789, Kosciuszko emerged as a military and political leader, pressing for democratic reforms in Polish government and society and leading Polish forces against Russian armies sent to suppress the Polish movement for independence in1791 and again in 1794. After his final defeat in 1794, he spent the rest of his life in exile.