MS Alfhem
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MS Alfhem
MS ''Alfhem'' was a Scandinavian cargo ship that was built in 1930 and traded for more than 30 years. In her career she passed through five successive owners, managers and names. ''Alfhem'' is her fourth name and the one by which she is most widely known. In 1954 the CIA was engineering a ''coup d'état'' in Guatemala to replace the elected civilian government of President Jacobo Arbenz with a military dictator, Colonel Carlos Castillo. Since 1951 the US had withheld arms supplies to the Guatemalan government, and in 1953 the US blocked Guatemalan government attempts to buy arms from Canada, Germany and Rhodesia. In the spring of 1954 Guatemala bought 2,000 tons of arms and ammunition from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and used ''Alfhem'' to ship them to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. The US regarded ''Alfhem''s success in evading US sea and air patrols to deliver the munitions as a setback. However, it did not prevent the CIA from executing Operation PBSuccess against Guatem ...
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Scheldt
The Scheldt ( ; ; ) is a river that flows through northern France, western Belgium, and the southwestern part of Netherlands, the Netherlands, with its mouth at the North Sea. Its name is derived from an adjective corresponding to Old English ("shallow"), Modern English ''shoal'', Low German , West Frisian language, West Frisian , and obsolete Swedish language, Swedish ("thin"). Course The headwaters of the Scheldt are in Gouy, Aisne, Gouy, in the Aisne department of northern France. It flows north through Cambrai and Valenciennes, and enters Belgium near Tournai. Ghent developed at the confluence of the Lys (river), Lys, one of its main tributaries, and the Scheldt, which then turns east. Near Antwerp, the largest city on its banks, the Scheldt flows west into the Netherlands toward the North Sea. Originally there were two branches from that point: the Oosterschelde (Eastern Scheldt); and the Westerschelde (Western Scheldt). In the 19th century, however, the Dutch built a ...
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1954 Guatemalan Coup D'état
The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état () deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and marked the end of the Guatemalan Revolution. The coup installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala. The coup was precipitated by a CIA covert operation code-named PBSuccess. The Guatemalan Revolution began in 1944, after a popular uprising toppled the military dictatorship of Jorge Ubico. Juan José Arévalo was elected president in Guatemala's first democratic election. He introduced a minimum wage and near-universal suffrage. Arévalo was succeeded in 1951 by Árbenz, who instituted land reforms which granted property to landless peasants. The Guatemalan Revolution was disliked by the U.S. federal government, which was predisposed during the Cold War to see it as communist. This perception grew after Árbenz had been elected and formally legalized the communist Guatemala ...
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Honduras
Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Its Capital city, capital and largest city is Tegucigalpa. Honduras was home to several important Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya civilization, Maya, before Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish colonization in the sixteenth century. The Spanish introduced Catholic Church, Catholicism and the now predominant Spanish language, along with numerous customs that have blended with the indigenous culture. Honduras became independent in 1821 and has since been a republic, although it has consistently endured much social strife and political instability, and remains one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. In 1960, the northern part o ...
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Puerto Cortés
Puerto Cortés, originally known as Puerto de Caballos, is a port city and municipality on the north Caribbean coast of Honduras, right on the Laguna de Alvarado, north of San Pedro Sula and east of Omoa, with a natural bay. The present city was founded in the early colonial period. It grew rapidly in the twentieth century, thanks to the then railroad, and banana production. In terms of volume of traffic the seaport is the largest in Central America and the 36th largest in the world. The city of Puerto Cortés has a population of 73,150 (2023 calculation). History Gil González Dávila founded the city in 1524 and called Villa de la Natividad de Nuestra Señora, now known as Cieneguita. In 1526 Hernán Cortés came to punish González Dávila and when he arrived on Honduras' coast from Mexico and started unloading horses and cargo from the ships, several horses were drowned, and for that reason, Cortés called it Puerto Caballos. By 1533, a local native leader, called Çiçu ...
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Dutch West Indies
The Dutch Caribbean (historically known as the Dutch West Indies) are the New World territories, colonies, and countries (former and current) of the Dutch Empire and the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean Sea, mainly the northern and southwestern regions of the Lesser Antilles archipelago. The Dutch Caribbean comprises the constituent countries of Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten (the 'CAS' islands) and the special municipalities of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (BES islands). The term "Dutch Caribbean" is sometimes also used for the Caribbean Netherlands, an entity consisting of the three special municipalities forming part of the constituent country of the Netherlands since 2010. The population of the Dutch Caribbean is 337,617 as of January 2019. History The islands of the Dutch Caribbean were, formerly, part of Curaçao and Dependencies (1815–1828), or Sint Eustatius and Dependencies (1815–1828), which were merged with the colony of Suriname ( ...
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Curaçao
Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela. Curaçao includes the main island of Curaçao and the much smaller, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao ("Little Curaçao"). Curaçao has a population of 158,665 (January 2019 estimate), with an area of ; its capital is Willemstad. Together with Aruba and Bonaire, Curaçao forms the ABC islands (Leeward Antilles), ABC islands. Collectively, Curaçao, Aruba, and other Dutch islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean. It is the largest of the ABC islands in terms of area, as well as in terms of population, and is the largest in the Dutch Caribbean. The island's name "Curaçao" may originate from the indigenous autonym of its people; this idea is supported by early Spanish accounts referring to the inhabitants as Indios Curaçaos. Curaç ...
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Senegal
Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea to Guinea–Senegal border, the southeast and Guinea-Bissau to Guinea-Bissau–Senegal border, the southwest. Senegal nearly surrounds The Gambia, a country occupying a narrow sliver of land along the banks of the Gambia River, which separates Senegal's southern region of Casamance from the rest of the country. It also shares a maritime border with Cape Verde. Senegal's capital is Dakar. Senegal is the westernmost country in the mainland of the Old World, or Afro-Eurasia. It owes its name to the Senegal River, which borders it to the east and north. The climate is typically Sahelian, though there is a wet season, rainy season. Senegal covers a land area of almost and has a population of around 18 million. The state is a Presidential system ...
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French West Africa
French West Africa (, ) was a federation of eight French colonial empires#Second French colonial empire, French colonial territories in West Africa: Colonial Mauritania, Mauritania, French Senegal, Senegal, French Sudan (now Mali), French Guinea (now Guinea), French Ivory Coast, Ivory Coast, French Upper Volta, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), French Dahomey, Dahomey (now Benin) and Colony of Niger, Niger. The federation existed from 1895 until 1958. Its capital was Saint-Louis, Senegal, Saint-Louis in Senegal until 1902, and then Dakar until the federation's collapse in 1960. With an area of 4,689,000 km2, French West Africa was eight times the size of Metropolitan France. French Equatorial Africa had an additional area of 2,500,000 km2. History Until after World War II, almost none of the Africans living in the colonies of France were citizens of France. Rather, they were "French subjects," lacking rights before the law, property ownership rights, rights to travel, dissen ...
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Dakar
Dakar ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The Departments of Senegal, department of Dakar has a population of 1,278,469, and the population of the Dakar metropolitan area was at 4.0 million in 2023. Dakar is situated on the Cap-Vert peninsula, the westernmost point of mainland Africa. Cap-Vert was colonized by the Portuguese people, Portuguese in the early 15th century. The Portuguese established a presence on the island of Gorée off the coast of Cap-Vert and used it as a base for the Atlantic slave trade. Kingdom of France, France took over the island in 1677. Following the abolition of the slave trade and French annexation of the mainland area in the 19th century, Dakar grew into a major regional port and a major city of the French colonial empire. In 1902, Dakar replaced Saint-Louis, Senegal, Saint-Louis as the capital of French West Africa. From 1959 to 1960, Dakar was the capital of the short-lived Mali Federation. ...
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People's Republic Of Poland
The Polish People's Republic (1952–1989), formerly the Republic of Poland (1947–1952), and also often simply known as Poland, was a country in Central Europe that existed as the predecessor of the modern-day democratic Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million near the end of its existence, it was the second most-populous communist government, communist and Eastern Bloc country in Europe. It was also where the Warsaw Pact was founded. The largest city and capital was Warsaw, followed by the industrial city of Łódź and cultural city of Kraków. The country was bordered by the Baltic Sea to the north, the Soviet Union to the east, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, Czechoslovakia to the south, and East Germany to the west. The Polish People's Republic was a unitary state with a Marxist–Leninist government established in the country after the Red Army's takeover of Polish territory from Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German occupation in ...
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Szczecin
Szczecin ( , , ; ; ; or ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the Poland-Germany border, German border, it is a major port, seaport, the largest city of northwestern Poland, and seventh-largest city of Poland. the population was 391,566. Szczecin is located on the Oder River, south of the Szczecin Lagoon and the Bay of Pomerania. The city is situated along the southwestern shore of Dąbie Lake, on both sides of the Oder and on several large islands between the western and eastern branches of the river. It is also surrounded by dense forests, shrubland and heaths, chiefly the Ueckermünde Heath, Wkrzańska Heath shared with Germany (Ueckermünde) and the Szczecin Landscape Park. Szczecin is adjacent to the Police, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, town of Police and is the urban centre of the Szczecin agglomeration, an extended metropolitan area that includes communities in the St ...
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Puerto Barrios
Puerto Barrios () is a city in Guatemala, located within the Gulf of Honduras. The city is located on Bahia de Amatique. Puerto Barrios is the departmental seat of Izabal department and is the administrative seat of Puerto Barrios municipality. It is Guatemala's main Caribbean Sea port, together with its more modern twin port town just to the southwest, Santo Tomás de Castilla. As of the 2018 census, the population of Puerto Barrios was 100,593. Puerto Barrios is located northeast of Guatemala City. It is the terminus of Highway CA9 which begins at the Pacific port city of Puerto San José and traverses the country through Guatemala City. The city's population is a mix of mostly Garifuna, Maya, Afro-Caribbean (such as Afro-Jamaicans), and other West Indian groups. Its heyday was in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, following the construction of a railroad connecting large banana and coffee plantations with the shipping docks, all controlled by the International R ...
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