19 November: Puerto Rico Discovery Day

It's Puerto Rico Discovery Day, marking the discovery of the US territory. Here are some things you may not know about the place:

1. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated United States territory located in the northeastern Caribbean Sea. Although the people who live there are US citizens, and their head of state is the President of the United States, they don't get to vote in presidential elections. They have been given several chances to vote on their future, however and whether they want to stay as they are, become the 51st US state or become an independent country. Although the most recent poll in 2012 came out in favour of statehood, there was more than one question on the ballot paper and quite a few voters didn't answer all the questions, making the result inconclusive.
2. It is an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands as Mona, Culebra, and Vieques.
3. The capital is San Juan, which also happens to be the oldest city in any US territory. Originally, Christopher Columbus named the entire island San Juan and the port Puerto Rico, meaning rich port, but as time went on, traders and other visitors referred to the port as San Juan and the whole island as Puerto Rico. The island is also known in Spanish as la isla del encanto, meaning "the island of enchantment."
4. Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen – a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, which means "Land of the Valiant Lord." The terms boricua and borincano are often used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage.
5. Puerto Rico is home to the largest single-aperture Telescope in the world, at Arecibo Observatory. The radio telescope measures 1000 feet (305 meters). Discoveries made using this telescope include: that the rotation period of Mercury was not 88 days, as previously thought, but only 59 days; the first solid evidence of neutron stars; the first binary Pulsar; the first millisecond pulsar and the fastest spinning pulsar. It was also the source of the Arecibo Message, which consisted of 1,679 binary digits, approximately 210 bytes, aimed at the current location of globular star cluster M13. The total broadcast was less than three minutes long. However, ET won't get the message for 25,000 years, by which time the target cluster will have moved anyway. If ET decides to reply, the reply will take another 25,000 years to get back to us. So nobody is holding their breath waiting for alien contact to come from it.
6. More than 70% of the rum sold in the U.S. comes from Puerto Rico. It is also the home of the rum cocktail, Pina Colada, which is Puerto Rico's national drink.
7. Puerto Rico has an unofficial national animal - the coquí, an inch long tree frog with a distinctive call.
8. Cerro de Punta is the highest point at 1,338 meters (4,390 ft). The view from the top is said to be the best view in all of Puerto Rico. On a clear day, it is possible to see virtually the entire island, including San Juan, which is over 75 miles away.
9. At the other extreme, there is the Puerto Rico Trench, which at 280 km (170 mi) long and 8,400 m (27,600 ft) deep at its deepest point, is the largest and deepest trench in the Atlantic.
10. El Yunque is the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest System.