Rwanda is a country in central and eastern Africa located a few degrees south of the Equator, bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All of Rwanda is at high elevation, with a geography dominated by mountains in the west, savanna in the east, and numerous lakes throughout the country. The climate is temperate. The predominantly rural population of 11.7 million people forms three main groups: the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa. After Rwanda was first settled by hunter-gatherers in the Stone and Iron Ages, the population coalesced into clans and then into a Tutsi-led kingdom. It was colonised by Europeans in the 19th century and gained independence from Belgium on 1 July 1962 after a Hutu revolt led to massacres of Tutsis and the establishment of a Hutu-dominated republic. In 1990 the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched a civil war, which was followed by the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, in which Hutu extremists killed an estimated 500,000 to 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu but were ultimately defeated by the RPF. The economy suffered during the genocide, but has since strengthened and depends heavily on subsistence agriculture. (more...)
A drawing depicting the death of John F. Reynolds, a United States Army officer who was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. Reynolds was commanding the "left wing" of the Army of the Potomac. As he was exhorting his troops, "Forward men! For God's sake forward!", he fell from his horse with a wound in the back of the upper neck, or lower head, and died almost instantly. His death essentially selected the location for the battle, to fight on that ground with forces that were initially numerically inferior to the Confederates that were concentrating there.
