(Roughly) Daily

From the oldest (Japan, 2,673 years old) to the youngest (South Sudan, which just turned 2), the countries of the world, mapped by their ages.  The average of the 195 countries assessed:  158.78 years old.

(Click here for a larger interactive version of the map.)

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As we unfurl our flags, we might recall that it was on this date in 1796 that Cleveland was founded, when surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company laid out Connecticut’s Western Reserve into townships and a capital city they named “Cleaveland” after their leader, General Moses Cleaveland.  Cleaveland oversaw the plan for the modern downtown area, centered on the Public Square, before returning home– never again to visit Ohio.  The first settler in Cleaveland was Lorenzo Carter, who built a cabin on the banks of the Cuyahoga River; the Village of Cleaveland was incorporated on December 23, 1814.

The spelling of the municipality’s name was changed to the now-familiar “Cleveland” in 1831.  The most widely-accepted explanation is that The Cleveland Advertiser, an early city newspaper shortened the name to fit on newspaper’s masthead; another version has it that it was the product of a surveyor’s mistake.  In any case, of course, the more streamlined spelling stuck.

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