African Countries and Capitals...

With the recent turmoil in the North African region and the Middle East, it’s not a surprise that such nations have caught the attention of ours.

I guess, this would be an ideal time to look into the basics once again. Remember I posted the list of capitals of the countries in Asia, South America and Europe earlier? Moving on from there, let’s now look at the capitals of the countries of the African continent.

Capital cities clockwise - Tunis (Tunisia), Harare (Zimbabwe), Cairo (Egypt), Accra (Ghana)

Please note that some countries like Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria have named new cities as their capitals in the recent past. Hope this would be useful.

Country	Capital
Algeria	Algiers
Angola	Luanda
Benin	Porto Novo
Botswana	Gaborone
Burkina Faso	Ouagadougou
Burundi	Bujumbura
Cameroon	Yaoundé
Cape Verde	Praia
Central African Republic	Bangui
Chad	N’Djamena
Comoros	Moroni
Cote d’Ivoire	Yamoussoukro
Democratic Republic of Congo	Kinshasa
Djibouti	Djibouti
Egypt	Cairo
Equatorial Guinea	Malabo
Eritrea	Asmara
Ethiopia	Addis Ababa
Gabon	Libreville
Gambia	Banjul
Ghana	Accra
Guinea	Conakry
Guinea-Bissau	Bissau
Kenya	Nairobi
Lesotho	Maseru
Liberia	Monrovia
Libya	Tripoli
Madagascar	Antananarivo
Malawi	Lilongwe
Mali	Bamako
Mauritania	Nouakchott
Mauritius	Port Louis
Morocco	Rabat
Mozambique	Maputo
Namibia	Windhoek
Niger	Niamey
Nigeria	Abuja
Republic of Congo	Brazzaville
Rwanda	Kigali
Sao Tome & Principe	Sao Tome
Senegal	Dakar
Seychelles	Victoria
Sierra Leone	Free Town
Somalia	Mogadishu
South Africa	Pretoria
Sudan	Khartoum
Swaziland	Mbabane
Tanzania	Dodoma
Togo	Lome
Tunisia	Tunis
Uganda	Kampala
Zambia	Lusaka
Zimbabwe	Harare

Oscar Awards - Records and Facts....

Ok, I’m back with my first post for March, 2011. I thought of switching from the usual topic these days, which is the Cricket World Cup. Instead for a change let’s have a look at some facts related to the field of Arts and Entertainment. This time it’ll be the Oscar Awards.

The Oscar Awards for 2011 has just been announced. My post today will outline some of the records and facts gathered from the history of this prestigious award ceremony. So here we go.

• The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood to honor outstanding film achievements of the 1927/1928 film season.

• The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last CommandThe Way of All Flesh. In the inaugural awards ceremony held in 1929, the Best Picture award was won by the film “Wings”. and

• Art director Cedric Gibbons is credited with the design of the award trophy.

• At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27, 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced. Until then, foreign language films were honored with the Special Achievement Award.

• In 1993, an In Memoriam segment was introduced, honoring those who had made a significant contribution to cinema who had died in the preceding 12 months.

• Three films have been awarded 11 Academy Awards each, making them the film with most awards being won. The three films are Ben-Hur (1929), Titanic (1997) and Lord of the Rings – The return of the King (2003).

• Walt Disney won 26 Oscars (22 competitive, 4 honorary), making him the person who has won the most number of Academy Awards.

• Most awards won by a woman, is Edith Head (who is a costume designer) who won 8 awards.

• John Ford has 4 Oscar Awards, making him the Director who has won the most number of awards. In acting, Katherine Hepburne has also won 4 Oscars, which the most number is won by an actor / actress.

• Three films have received the so-called Big Five Academy Awards (best picture, director, actor, actress, and writing). They are It Happened One Night (1934), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

• First woman to win Best Picture is Julia Phillips for The Sting (1973), while the first woman to win the Best Director award is Kathryn Bigelow for Hurt Locker (2009).

• Titanic (1997) and All About Eve (1950) has the record for most number of nominations (14).