1460 UKRAINE - Old Hutsul woman

Hutsuls are an ethno-cultural group, or rather an ethnic subgroup, who for centuries have inhabited the Carpathian mountains, mainly in Ukraine (Trans-Carpathia and Pokuttya) and in the northern extremity of Romania (in the areas of Bukovina and Maramureş). Hutsuls regard themselves as being part of the broader Rusyn ethnic minority and/or as Ukrainian highlanders. Rusyns are, in their turn, the descendants of a minority of Ruthenians who didn't adopt the use of the ethnonym Ukrainian in the early 20th century.

1459 CAPE VERDE (Boa Vista) - Chave Beach

Part of the Barlavento islands (literally, the Windward), the northern island group of Cape Verde archipelago, Boa Vista (Portuguese meaning "good view") is known for marine turtles and traditional music, as well as its ultramarathon and its sand dunes and beaches. With an area of 620 km², it is the third largest island, after Santo Antão and Santiago, and is located at 455km west of the coast of Africa. Much of the island is flat, the highest point being Monte Estância (387m). Boa Vista has wonderful beaches with white sand dunes, slim coconut palms and turquoise blue waters.

1458 ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA (Antigua) - Long Bay Beach

The shorelines of Antigua, the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda, are greatly indented, with beaches, lagoons, and natural harbours, rimmed by reefs and shoals. It is said to have 365 beaches, one for every day of the year. Probably that is an exaggeration, but anyway its economy is reliant upon tourism, and it promotes the island as a luxury Caribbean escape. One of its most popular beach is Long Bay Beach, located about 5 minutes from the village of Willikies at Long Bay on the east coast of the island. Its fine white sand, the crystal blue waters and the Barrier Reef situated just a few meters from the shore, make it a great place for snorkelling.

1457 JAPAN (Chūbu) - Japanese macaques in the hot springs of Jigokudani Monkey Park

The largely temperate Japan has its own endemic species of monkey, which comes as a surprise to those who associates these mammals with tropical and sub-tropical areas. In fact, these monkeys are unusual in being among the northernmost of all non-human primates. The Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata), also known as the snow monkey, is a terrestrial Old World monkey species found on three of the four main Japanese islands (Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu), in a variety of habitats. The total population has been estimated to be 114,431 monkeys, and the northernmost point where they live is the Shimokita Peninsula, on Honshu island. In modern times, they have lost their fear of humans and have increased their presence in both rural and urban areas, with one macaque recorded living in central Tokyo for several months.

1454-1456 UNITED STATES (New York) - Fire Island Lighthouse

The Fire Island Lighthouse is a visible landmark located on the Great South Bay, actually a lagoon situated between Long Island and Fire Island. It is part of the Fire Island Light Station which contains the Light, Keepers Quarters, Lens Building containing the original First Order Fresnel Lens, and a boat house. It was an important landmark for transatlantic ships coming into New York Harbor at the turn of the last century. For many European immigrants, the Fire Island Light was their first sight of land upon arrival in America.

 

The first lighthouse built on Fire Island was completed in 1826. It was a 23m high, cream colored, octagonal pyramid made of Connecticut River blue split stone. Built at the end of the island, adjacent to the inlet, it wasn't effective due to its lack of height; so was taken down and the stone was reused to build the terrace for the present lighthouse. Today a circular ring of bricks and stone are all that remain of the original lighthouse. Due to the westward migration of sand along the beach, known as littoral drift, the inlet is now approximately six miles westward of this site.

 

A new lighthouse, 55m tall, made of red brick, painted a creamy yellow color, began operation in 1858. It was changed to the present day-mark of alternating black and white bands in 1891. Over the years various fuels were used for the lamps, including whale oil, lard oil, mineral oil and kerosene. Electricity finally reached the lighthouse in 1938. The light was decommissioned in 1974, but in 1982 the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society was formed to preserve it. Four years later the Coast Guard returned the lighthouse to an active aid to navigation, and in 2006, the light became a private aid to navigation.

1453 GUINEA (Faranah) - Kissi woman with a djabara

 

Kissi people live in Guinea (420,000), Liberia (176,000) and Sierra Leone (125,000), speak a Niger–Congo language, and are well known for making baskets and weaving on vertical looms, although are primarily farmers. In past times they were also famous for their iron working skills, the Kissi smiths producing the famous Kissi penny, an iron money widely used in West and even Central Africa. They live in small, self-governing villages that are tucked inside groves of mango or kola trees. Each village is compact, containing no more than about 150 people. Although they have converted to Christianity, most of them continue to practice their traditional ethnic religion. Ancestor worship or praying to deceased relatives is a common practice among the Kissi.

1452 NORWAY (Svalbard) - An aurora borealis seen from Svalbard archipelago

Nature gives us a lot of amazing performances, but none is so impressive, mysterious and beautiful as the aurora, a show of light and color that can be seen on the sky of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Those who lived this experience say it can't be compared with anything in the world, and the photos seem to give them right. Scientifically speaking, an aurora is a natural light display in the sky, caused by charged particles, mainly electrons and protons, entering the atmosphere from above causing ionisation and excitation of atmospheric constituents, and consequent optical emissions. When it occurs in the northern hemisphere (from September to October, and from March to April), the phenomenon is known as the aurora borealis (or the northern lights), a term originally used by Galileo Galilei, referring to the Roman goddess of dawn, Aurora, and to the Titan who represent the winds, Boreas.

1451 A world map

I like this map, but I don't know what can I say about it. It was printed in Russia... Otherwise... Ah, it is deformed in an unusual way... Any map is distorted, because it's a problem to represent a globe on a plane, but this map has a disproportionate ratio between water and land, i.e. that the seas and oceans occupy an area much smaller than in reality. But who cares? There is no one going to be guided by such a map. In another train of thoughts, the fantastic animals present on the maps of the great geographical discoveries era were replaced, in a cute way, with childish representations of animals common in cartoons.

1450 TAJIKISTAN (Districts of Republican Subordination) - Gissar fortress

Situated at 26 km from Dushanbe, at an altitude of 799-824m, in the center of Gissar valley, the most green and densely-populated part of the country, Gissar fortress is surrounded from all sides by high mountains: from the North - Gissar Range, from the South - the Babatag and Aktau ranges. The fortress has been known for more than 2500 years. As the residence of Gissar bek, the governor-general of the emir of Bukhara, it was an important center of ancient Tajikistan. Time didn't spare the fortress and its structures. In the old days it had walls of 1 meter thick, loopholes for guns and cannons, a pool and a garden inside. The only thing that remained is a monumental gateway with two cylindrical towers, between which there is an ogival arch, built in the 16th century. Besides the castle there are two huge plane trees, which are about 500-700 years old.

1449 GERMANY (Lower Saxony) - Wolfenbüttel Castle

Located on the Oker river, about 13km south of Brunswick, on the trade route from the Rhine to the Elbe, Wolfenbüttel was first mentioned in 1118 (as Wulferisbutle), became the residence of the dukes of Brunswick in 1432, and over the following three centuries it grew to be a centre of the arts. The castle located in the town was destroyed several times, so its appearance changed in time, now  being a real bric-a-brac of different styles. It is not only the second largest of its kind, but it also houses the only ducal apartments in  Lower Saxony dating back to the High Baroque. The still existing magnificent façade and the prestigious apartments built between 1690 and 1740 are a proof of the riches of the ducal court. It had earlier several towers, of which foundations are still partly present today. The highest (Hausmannsturm) was built in 1613 by the royal architect Paul Francke in Renaissance style, and is still standing today.  

1448 UNITED KINGDOM (Bermuda) - Tobacco Bay

Located in the far north of Bermuda, Tobacco Bay lies close to the town of St. George's and to the historic  Fort St. Catherine. Survivors of Sir George Somers’ ship, the Sea Venture, gave this bay its name after they discovered tobacco growing here. Now, snorkelling is a popular activity, because the bay has impressive underwater coral reefs. It has also an interesting history and was intimately connected with Bermuda's Gunpowder Plot. On August 14, 1775, a group of Bermudians sympathetic to the independentist cause of the American Continental Congress stole gunpowder from the British Magazine in St. George's, rolled it across the island to Tobacco Bay and shipped it to America.

1447 FINLAND (Åland) - The flag of the Åland Islands

The Åland Islands (Finnish: Ahvenanmaa) is an autonomous region of Finland that consists of an archipelago lying at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea, which comprises Fasta Åland (Main Island) and 6,500 skerries and islands. Fasta Åland is separated from the coast of Sweden by 38km of open water to the west, and in the east is contiguous with the Finnish Archipelago Sea. Åland's only land border is located on the uninhabited skerry of Märket, which it shares with Sweden.

1446 FRANCE (New Caledonia) - Lagoons of New Caledonia: Reef Diversity and Associated Ecosystems (UNESCO WHS)

Your sumptuous lagoon that the world courts

And your jungle where our first flower was born

Sing in the universe this exquisite romance

Of a victorious island and a triumphant lagoon.

When the nature, inventing a new mode of reproduction, created the first flower, did it in New Caledonia, located back then in the middle of a continent called Gondwana, 130 milion years ago. The chosen plant, Amborella trichopoda, a primitive flower, even today devoid of perfume, is the mother of all the flowers of the planet; she met the dinosaurs. The Caledonian archipelago is a paradise for botanists; it is the third country in the world for its endemic flora; and number one worldwide for biodiversity of plants. As for its lagoon, the largest in the world, ranked among the most beautiful, is one of the three inscribed in humanity's heritage for its richness and exceptional beauty. Feather stars, sea whips, corals, soft corals are also like the flowers. It is the triumph of New Caledonia on land and in the sea.

1445 GAMBIA - "Black Ladies" by Uwe Ommer

Born in 1943 in Bergisch Gladbach (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), Uwe Ommer has been taking photos for as long as he can remember. In 1963, he came to live in Paris where he started working as a photographer’s assistant. His work was soon recognized and he began shooting fashion and advertising photos. In December 1995, he took on a personal challenge to make a worldwide family photo album, For four years, he crisscrossed the five continents with his Rolleiflex and his portable studio, creating a unique photographic record of the family at the dawn of the third millennium: 1,251 families photographed and interviewed (1000 Families: das Familienalbum des Planeten Erde / 1000 Families: the Family Album of Planet Earth - Taschen, Cologne, 2000). This postcard, depicting a woman from Gambia, is part of a photo album named Black Ladies (Taco, Berlin, 1987 / Taschen, Cologne, 1995).

1443 FRANCE (French Guiana) - The map of French Guiana

French Guiana is the largest overseas department and region of France, located on the north Atlantic coast of South America, between Brazil and Suriname. Historically speaking, The Guianas (Las Guayanas in spanish) refers to a region in South America, north of the Amazon River and east of the Orinoco River, which includes French Guiana, Guyana (former British Guiana), Suriname (former Dutch Guiana), the Guayana Region in Venezuela (former Spanish Guyana), and Brazilian State of Amapá (former Portuguese Guiana). It consists of two main geographical regions: a coastal strip where the majority of the people live, and dense, near-inaccessible rainforest which gradually rises to the modest peaks of the Tumuc-Humac mountains along the Brazilian frontier.

1442 MALTA - Popeye Village

Also known as Sweethaven Village, Popeye Village is a group of rustic and ramshackle wooden buildings located at Anchor Bay, in the north-west corner of the island of Malta, two miles from the village of Mellieħa. It was built as a film set for the production of the 1980 live-action musical feature film Popeye, produced by Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions and starring Robin Williams. Today it is open to the public as an open-air museum and family entertainment complex. Some of the houses in Popeye Village have been equipped with various items related to the filming, including props used in the film's production.

1437 PORTUGAL (Braga / Viana do Castelo) - Woman spinner of Pêrre linen

Entre Douro e Minho is one of the historical provinces of Portugal which encompassed, as the name suggests (Between-Douro-and-Minho), the country's northern Atlantic seaboard between the Douro and Minho rivers, practically the area which included the current Viana do Castelo, Braga and Porto districts. In 1936, when Portugal was divided into 13 official provinces, Entre Douro e Minho was split into Minho Province and Douro Litoral Province. Minho, dissolved in 1976, included the districts of Braga and Viana do Castelo, and had the capital in the city of Braga. Minho has substantial Celtic influences and shares many cultural traits with neighbouring Galicia in Spain. Perre is a parish in the municipality of Viana do Castelo, situated on the right bank of the river Lima.

1436 UNITED KINGDOM (England) - Map of South Devon

Devon (archaically known as Devonshire) is a county in South West England, reaching from the Bristol Channel to the English Channel. It is divided informally into North Devon and South Devon. In a narrower sense "South Devon" is used to refer to the part of Devon south of Exeter and Dartmoor,  including Plymouth, Torbay and the districts of South Hams, West Devon and Teignbridge. Its name derives from Dumnonia, the homeland of the Dumnonii Celts. The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain resulted in the partial assimilation of Dumnonia into the Kingdom of Wessex during the 8th and 9th centuries. The border with Cornwall was set by King Æthelstan on the east bank of the River Tamar in 936 AD. The county town is Exeter, in antiquity the most south-westerly Roman fortified settlement in Britain.

1435 SWITZERLAND (Jura) - Saint-Ursanne bridge

The small city of Saint-Ursanne, which name refers to Saint Ursicinus, a 7th-century monk who built a monastery here, has preserved its medieval character, and contains many historical curiosities, including collegiate churches, a cloister, the ruins of a castle, and a hermitage. Additionally, the city is famous for the medieval festival which it organizes each summer. The River Doubs makes a loop by Saint-Ursanne before flowing into France. The entrance from the south over the bridge and through the Porte St-Jean is very impressive. A statue of St. John of Nepomuk, patron saint of all bridges, stands on one of the abutments.

1434 AUSTRIA (Styria) - Riegersburg Castle

1434 Riegersburg Castle

Located on a dormant volcano above the town of Riegersburg, at an height of 450m, Riegersburg Castle has a long history, which begins in the year 1122. During the centuries the castle had a lot of owners, but only few of them played an important role. The most important owner was the baroness Katharina Elisabeth von Wechsler, married Galler and known as Gallerin, who finished the castle between 1637 and 1653, making it one of the strongest in the country. Surrounded by 2 miles of walls with 5 gates, it contains 108 rooms.