- Pierce County — Thumbnail History (historylink.org)
Pierce County, located in southwestern Washington abutting Puget Sound, encompasses an extremely wide range of elevations: from sea level on Puget Sound to 14,410 at the summit of Mount Rainier. The entire footprint of Mount Rainier, an active Cascade volcano encased in more than 35 square miles of snow and glacial ice, lies within the county’s boundaries. Pierce County comprises 1,675 square miles, placing it 23rd in size among Washington’s 39 counties…
- Antigua and Barbuda - The World Factbook (cia.gov)
The Siboney were the first people to inhabit the islands of Antigua and Barbuda in 2400 B.C., but the Arawaks populated the islands when Christopher COLUMBUS landed on his second voyage in 1493. Early Spanish and French settlements were succeeded by an English colony in 1667. Slavery, which provided labor on the sugar plantations on Antigua, was abolished in 1834. The islands became an independent state within the British Commonwealth of Nations in 1981. In 2017, Hurricane Irma passed over the island of Barbuda, devastating the island and forcing the evacuation of the population to Antigua. Almost all of the structures on Barbuda were destroyed and the vegetation stripped, but Antigua was spared the worst.
- Antigua and Barbuda (Wikipedia)
Antigua and Barbuda (UK: /ænˈtiːɡə … bɑːrˈbuːdə/, US: /ænˈtiːɡwə … bɑːrˈbjuːdə/) is a sovereign island country in the Caribbean. It lies at the conjuncture of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in the Leeward Islands part of the Lesser Antilles.