Aruba.
Information.
ARUBA - is a island of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea, 27 km north of the Paraguana Peninsula, Falcon State, Venezuela. It is in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Area - 193 кв.км. Population - 102,695 (2006) Capital - Oranjestad Europeans first learned of Aruba when Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda came across it in 1499 and conquered it on behalf of Spain. It remained a Spanish colony for over a century. In 1636 Aruba was captured by the crew of a Dutch ship commanded by Peter Stuyvesant. The island was formally turned over to the Netherlands in 1648. The island's economy has been dominated by four main industries: gold mining, aloe export, petroleum, and tourism. On February 16, 1942, its oil processing refinery, which was at the time one of the largest in the region, was attacked by a German submarine (U-156) under the command of Werner Hartenstein. The mission failed miraculously. Aruba's Refinery was the main supplier of oil to the Allies at the time. The U-156 was later destroyed by a US plane as the crew was sunbathing, only one survived. Eleanor Roosevelt paid a brief visit to the American troops stationed in Aruba during World War II. In August 1947, Aruba presented its first "Staatsreglement", for the status of an Autonomous State within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In 1977, the first Referendum for Self Determination was held with the support of the United Nations. In 1983, Aruba reached a final official agreement with the State of the Netherlands, the State of the Netherlands Antilles and the Island Governments, to become a Sovereign Member State within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with its own Constitution/Grondwet. Aruba's Constitution was proclaimed in August 1985. Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles on January 1, 1986, to become a separate, sovereign, self-governing member of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Movement toward full independence by 1996 was halted upon the request of Aruba's prime minister, Nelson O. Oduber, in 1990. Currency : Aruban florin.
