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I saw this video on Blogger Mathai and I didn’t know that the Iftar cannon firing is actually open to the public. Cannon firing has been an Arab tradition from centuries to mark the end of the fasting period at sunset and it is being carried out in Kuwait since the 1930s.

Al Watan has an article about this ceremony [Here].

[YouTube via Link]

This is a short video clip I found on YouTube which is CNN’s report on the 1st day of the Iraqi invasion on Kuwait on August 2nd, 1990. I still remember that morning quite clearly. My parents had traveled to London at midnight and we were staying with our grandmother. No one went to work and we were confused as to what’s going on when one of our aunts told us that Iraq has invaded Kuwait and there is a war going on. Later we found out that soon after Mom’s plane took off, the next BA flight was held by the Iraqi forces.

Mom was frantic in London and we were scared here in Kuwait. The Iraqi troops made small bunkers in the empty ground behind our building, we could hear gun fire and helicopters and we were forbidden to go near the windows. Somehow our family managed to get out of Kuwait in a minibus all the way through Iraq and then to Jordan where we finally met our parents.

I remember I wrote a diary about the whole journey even though I was little and I’m going to try to dig it out of the boxes and maybe post a few entries later.

[Here] is the link to our earlier post on the photographs taken by Adel Al-Yousifi as evidence of the destruction left behind by the Iraqis.

A friend of mine shared this website on Facebook called Kuwait Evidence that has about 1,200 high resolution photos of the destruction left behind from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The website is created by Adel Al-Yousifi and all the photos are his eyewitness account of the devastation he found when he returned home.

After checking on family and friends, he took his camera and began recording the devastation. Starting in the South, he made expeditions into the desert and then worked his way up the Coast, to the City, the Suburbs, and finally the North. Al-Yousifi took pictures every day from March till the last fire was put out in November.

The quality of the photographs is really amazing and the gallery is divided into the different types of damage suffered by each part of Kuwait during and after the invasion.

[Website]

Last November, the Empty Quarter Gallery in Dubai held an exhibition of the historical photographs of the Makkah in 1885 published by Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje in 1889 as ‘Bilder aus Mekka’ courtesy of Leiden University and a Dutch publisher. The original plates held by the Leiden University have been expertly rephotographed and reprinted as a portfolio of valuable platinum prints.

I’ve always been fascinated by history and especially the old buildings of the glorious past had their own attraction and charisma. I loved the simplicity portrayed in these photographs of a bygone Makkah, although in the last photo, the Printing building is reminiscent of the Greek Revival of the Neoclassical architecture of the late 19th century.

View the entire collection [Here] and read more about the photograhs and the story of Snouck on [CNN].

Since I was browsing through the articles on Kuwait’s history, I found out that the Central Bank of Kuwait had issued several commemorative coins and bank notes on the various anniveraries of Kuwait’s Independence and Liberation. There are Gold and Silver versions of the coins and they have also mentioned the cost of each. I am going to try and find out if they are available for purchase. It’s definitely a great collectible.

There are no pictures for the current 50th anniversary of the National Day and the 20th anniversary of the Liberation Day so I’m not sure if they have issued the commemorative coins or bank notes for this event. I guess we’ll have to keep a watch out for that.

The 25th Anniversary of the National Day of the State of Kuwait

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With the upcoming 50th anniversary of Kuwait’s Independence I was looking through the old pictures of Kuwait as well as articles and the history of the Independence. It’s quite necessary for everyone living here to know how Kuwait got its Independence and the history behind it. Many of you may not know about the actual date of the National Day and why it was changed to February 25th.

So here are several interesting finds that I’d like to share.

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