For more than four-and-a-half centuries Macau has occupied a unique position both in its geographical location at the mouth of the Pearl River in the South China Sea and as a link between Europe and China.

Founded by Portuguese in 1557, Macau was the first European colony on Chinese territory. It served not only as Europe’s gateway into China but as China’s “window” on the outside world that it had often shunned in the past.

Mixture of two cultures...

by Julie Skurdenis (part 2 of 3 on the Balkans)

The small country of Kosovo, in Eastern Europe, has seen its share of turmoil in recent years, especially since the breakup of Yugoslavia that began in the 1990s.

When Serbia emerged from the old Yugoslavia (more accurately, it “reemerged,” since Serbia once existed as an independent kingdom in the Middle Ages), Kosovo was part of this “new” Serbia, a political fact that changed in February 2008 when...

by Julie Skurdenis

Buenos Aires’ history stretches back almost 500 years. In 1536 King Carlos I of Spain sent Pedro de Mendoza to the Rio de la Plata in what is now northeastern Argentina to establish a fort. This fort was the first site of what eventually became Buenos Aires.

Forty-four years later, Juan de Garay “refounded” the city just a mile and a half from the original site, naming it Ciudad de la Santisima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa Maria de los Buenos...