February 24th: Estonia Independence Day

Estonia has two Independence Days. It first achieved independence from the Soviet Union on February 24, 1918 and again on August 20, 1991 after 51 years of occupation. The second date is known as the “Restoration of Independence Day.” 10 facts about Estonia:

1. Estonia is a world leader in terms of technology. It was the first country to adopt online voting in 2005, and Skype, Hotmail and Kazaa were founded and developed in Estonia. All schools and most homes have Internet access.
2. They're not so big on religion, though. Only 14% of the population claim to have any religious beliefs.
3. The Estonians love music - the country has the biggest collection of folk songs in the world with written records of 133,000 folk songs. More recently, in 2001, Estonia was the surprise winner of the Eurovision song contest. with the song Everybody, which was sung by Dave Benton and Tanel Padar. This made history; it was the first time a black performer had ever won the Eurovision Song Contest.
4. The highest mountain, Suur Munamägi, is only 318 meters (1,000 feet) high.
5. Estonia has the highest number of Meteorite craters per land area in the world.
6. The literacy rate is 99.8% - second place in the world. You could argue it's the highest as first place presumably goes to Vatican City, where it's 100%, but people only become citizens of the Vatican by getting a job there, and to do that, it probably helps to be able to read and write.
7. Estonia has more than one capital city. The official and administrative capital is Tallinn, but Tartu is the cultural capital and Parnu is the "Summer Capital".
8. Because Estonia is quite far north, and nights are long in winter, it is a legal requirement there for all cyclists and pedestrians to wear reflectors at night.
9. Since January 2013, anyone who is a registered citizen of Tallinn can use their public transport system for free. Which attracts more people to live in the city, so there are more people paying local taxes, more people supporting local shops and businesses, and means there are fewer cars on the road.
10. An unusual sport in Estonia is kiiking, meaning "swinging". It involves standing on a steel swing which can rotate 360 degrees, and doing full turns.

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