157th Anniversary of Minnesota Statehood

157 years ago, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the United States on May 11, 1858. It first became a territory of the United States in 1849. Then it submitted an application for statehood to President James Buchanan in January, 1858. However, distracted from a controversy about statehood of Kansas, Congress did not act on the application for several months before finally approved it. The state was created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and part of the Wisconsin Territory. The name "Minnesota" was originated from a Dakota word meaning "clear blue water." The state is known as the "Land of Ten Thousand Lakes" due to its large number of lakes.

Postcard US-2269166 from Minneapolis, MN shows Minnehaha Falls, one of the most photographed sites in Minnesota with 850,000 visitors every year, at Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The park was designed by landscape architect Horace W.S. Cleveland in 1883, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 as the Minnehaha Historic District.

Pangandaran, West Java, Indonesia

Postcard ID-120808 from Indonesia shows Pangandaran, West Java, Indonesia, a popular tourist destination known for its beach and surfing activities located on the southern coast of the island of Java.

It is a gateway to to Green Canyon (Cujang Taneuh) where visitors can hire a boat from the river harbor on the highway 1 kilometer before the turn-off to Batu Karas for a cruise along the emerald-green river in the jungle to a waterfall and a beautiful canyon.

In the news today, AirAsia Flight 8501 from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore vanished Sunday morning local time over the Java Sea. The expanded search so far has yet to turn up any trace of the Airbus A320. Located about 600 kilometers to the east of Pangandaran, Surabaya, capital of the province of East Java, is the second-largest city in Indonesia.

Cataratas do Iguaçu

Postcard BR-228416 from Brazil shows Iguazu Falls, meaning “large water”, which are waterfalls of the Iguazu River on the border of the Argentina province of Misiones and the Brazilian state of Paraná. The total width of the waterfalls is approximately 800 meters or 2,625 feet on the Brazilian side and 1,900 meters or 6,234 feet on the Argentinean side, with the Iguassu River narrowing from 1,200 meters or 3,937 feet in width above the falls, into a 65-meter or 213-foot channel below. The Iguazu Falls consists of about one hundred waterfalls during the average flow, with their heights ranging between 40 meters or 131 feet and 80 meters or 262 feet. The average flow of the river is about 1,500 m³/s, with a low of 500 m³/s in drought and a high of 8,500 m³/s in flood. The largest volume of flows occurs between October and March.

Five main falls are on the Brazilian side; fourteen main falls are on the Argentinean side. Since most of the falls are on the Argentinean side and facing Brazil, the best views are from the Brazilian side.

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With the 2014 FIFA World Cup on the way, the number of foreign visitors to the Iguazu National Park, one the New Seven Wonders of Nature, increased 65%.

Grand Canyon of North Carolina

Postcard US-2575442 from SC, USA shows "the Plunge Basin Trail that leads to views of Linville Falls from the bottom of Linville Gorge, a 1500-foot deep chasm which, in 1951, became the first designated wildness area in the eastern United State."

Linville Gorge is know as the Grand Canyon of North Carolina.