Today is Transfer Day, a public holiday in the US Virgin Islands. The holiday commemorates this day in 1917 when Denmark ceded the islands to the United States in exchange for $25 million in gold. The U.S. interest in the islands primarily was their strategic location to improve military positioning during World War I. Later, the islands were a foothold in the Caribbean for the U.S. Navy in World War II. As a part of the same treaty, the United States recognized Denmark’s control over Greenland.
Many Caribbean islands have switched hands many time as a result of wars between the colonizing countries. The island of Tobago changed owners 62 times, switching between Spanish, Dutch, French, British, Swedish and even German/Prussia ownership.
After the original Spanish settlement on the islands in 1555, there followed a complex period in which the islands were disputed among Spain, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Denmark–Norway also took an interest in the islands, and the Danish West India Company settled on St. Thomas in 1672 and St. John in 1694, later buying St. Croix from France in 1733. The islands became royal Danish colonies in 1754, named the Danish West Indian Islands (Danish: De dansk-vestindiske øer).
Not sure of the breed…
Rapunzel
Today is the birthday, in 1949, of Swedish drummer Roger Palm. Working as a session musician he appeared on such noteworthy ABBA songs as ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Dancing Queen’, ‘Thank You For The Music’ and ‘Take A Chance On Me’. During the 70s he was a member of Swedish bands the Gimmicks and then the Beatmakers, and started working on the session circuit in 1970. He died on 21 Sept 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-crgQGdpZR0
