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Carabane is an island and a village located in the extreme south-west of Senegal, in the mouth of the Casamance River. The earliest known inhabitants of the island were the Jola people, the ethnic group which is still the most populous on the island. On January 22, 1836, the island was ceded to France by the village leader of Kagnout in return for an annual payment of 196 francs. In 1869, Carabane became autonomous, but it merged with Sédhiou in 1886. Since World War II, the population of the island has gradually declined for a variety of reasons including periods of drought, the Casamance Conflict and, more recently, the sinking of the Joola in 2002. Because the Joola was the primary means of travel to and from Carabane, much of the village's ability to trade and receive tourists has been lost. Although Carabane was once a regional capital, the village has since become so politically isolated from the rest of the country that it no longer fits into any category of the administrative structure decreed by the Senegalese government. Although there have been attempts to cultivate a tourism industry on the island, the inhabitants have been reluctant to participate. (more...)

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February 13

• 1706 – Great Northern War: The Swedish employed the double envelopment military strategy to defeat Saxony–Poland and their Russian allies at the Battle of Fraustadt near Fraustadt in present-day Wschowa, Poland.
• 1815 – The Cambridge Union Society, one of the oldest debating societies in the world, was founded at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.
• 1867 – Work began on the covering of the Senne, burying Brussels' polluted main waterway to allow urban renewal in the centre of the city.
• 1945 – World War II: The Allies began their strategic bombing of Dresden, Saxony, Germany, resulting in a lethal firestorm which killed tens of thousands of civilians.
• 1960 – African American college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters (pictured) in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., part of a nonviolent direct action campaign to end racial segregation.

More anniversaries: February 12 – February 13 – February 14