Independence Day is a national holiday in the Co-Operative Republic of Guyana on May 26th.
This holiday commemorates Guyana gaining its independence on May 26th 1966.
Unusually, this is not Guyana's National Day, that takes place on February 23rd marking the country becoming a republic on that date in 1970.
History of
Guyana Independence Day
Christopher Columbus was the first European to
sight Guyana during his third voyage in 1498. Sir Walter Raleigh reported on
the region in 1596, but it was the Dutch who first established colonies,
importing African slaves to work on sugar plantations.
The British took control of the Dutch
colonies during the Napoleonic Wars, creating a single colony known as British
Guiana in 1831.
Trade unions formed after the first world
war, with political parties emerging after the second world war along with
political awareness and demands for independence.
A new constitution heralded the first
elections in 1953 and a degree of self-government by the end of the 1950s.
Guyana achieved independence from the
United Kingdom on May 26th 1966.
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