This Week in History: Sept. 18-24

Notable events for the week of September 18-24...

September 18, 1502: Columbus, during his fourth and final voyage, arrives in Costa Rica. The remoteness of Costa Rica as well as the determined resistance of the natives here, was to make the colonization of this country a difficult task for the Spaniards.

September 19, 1985: An earthquake devastates Mexico City, killing 9,000 and injuring 30,000. A further 100,000 are left homeless. Worst hit was the Lake Texcoco area. The epicenter of the earthquake, which measured 8.1 on the Richter scale, was 350 km to the west in the Pacific Ocean.

September 20, 1596: With twelve families, Diego de Montemayor establishes the city of Monterrey (then part of New Spain), by a spring called Ojos de Agua de Santa Lucia.

September 22, 1981: The small Central American country of Belize gains its full independence from Britain. Belize represented Britain's last presence in Central America, Today it is the only English-speaking country on this continent, and was known as British Honduras until 1973. British Honduras had been a self-governing colony since 1964.

Belize is located on the eastern coast of Central America in the Caribbean. Neighbors include Mexico to the north, Guatemala to the west and Honduras to the south-east across the Gulf of Honduras.