Mali the Republic of Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali is the eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of just over 1,240,000 square kilometres; the population of Mali is 19.1 million. 67% of its population was estimated to be under the age of 25 in 2017. Its capital is Bamako; the sovereign state of Mali consists of eight regions and its borders on the north reach deep into the middle of the Sahara Desert, while the country's southern part, where the majority of inhabitants live, features the Niger and Senegal rivers. The country's economy centers on mining; some of Mali's prominent natural resources include gold, being the third largest producer of gold in the African continent, salt. Present-day Mali was once part of three West African empires that controlled trans-Saharan trade: the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Songhai Empire. During its golden age, there was a flourishing of mathematics, astronomy and art. At its peak in 1300, the Mali Empire covered an area about twice the size of modern-day France and stretched to the west coast of Africa.

In the late 19th century, during the Scramble for Africa, France seized control of Mali, making it a part of French Sudan. French Sudan joined with Senegal in 1959. Shortly thereafter, following Senegal's withdrawal from the federation, the Sudanese Republic declared itself the independent Republic of Mali. After a long period of one-party rule, a coup in 1991 led to the writing of a new constitution and the establishment of Mali as a democratic, multi-party state. In January 2012, an armed conflict broke out in northern Mali, in which Tuareg rebels took control of a territory in the north, in April declared the secession of a new state, Azawad; the conflict was complicated by a military coup that took place in March and fighting between Tuareg and other rebel factions. In response to territorial gains, the French military launched Opération Serval in January 2013. A month Malian and French forces recaptured most of the north. Presidential elections were held on 28 July 2013, with a second-round run-off held on 11 August, legislative elections were held on 24 November and 15 December 2013.

The name Mali is taken from the name of the Mali Empire. The name means "the place. Guinean writer Djibril Niane suggests in Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali that it is not impossible that Mali was the name given to one of the capitals of the emperors. 14th-century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta reported that the capital of the Mali Empire was called Mali. One Mandinka tradition tells that the legendary first emperor Sundiata Keita changed himself into a hippopotamus upon his death in the Sankarani River, that it's possible to find villages in the area of this river, termed "old Mali", which have Mali for a name; this name could have been that of a city. In old Mali, there is one village called Malika which means "New Mali". Another theory suggests, it is suggested that a sound shift led to the change, whereby in Fulani the alveolar segment /nd/ shifts to /l/ and the terminal vowel denasalises and raises, thus "Manden" shifts to /Mali/. Mali was once part of three famed West African empires which controlled trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt and other precious commodities.

These Sahelian kingdoms had rigid ethnic identities. The earliest of these empires was the Ghana Empire, dominated by the Soninke, a Mande-speaking people; the empire expanded throughout West Africa from the 8th century until 1078, when it was conquered by the Almoravids. The Mali Empire formed on the upper Niger River, reached the height of power in the 14th century. Under the Mali Empire, the ancient cities of Djenné and Timbuktu were centers of both trade and Islamic learning; the empire declined as a result of internal intrigue being supplanted by the Songhai Empire. The Songhai people originated in current northwestern Nigeria; the Songhai had long been a major power in West Africa subject to the Mali Empire's rule. In the late 14th century, the Songhai gained independence from the Mali Empire and expanded subsuming the entire eastern portion of the Mali Empire; the Songhai Empire's eventual collapse was the result of a Moroccan invasion in 1591, under the command of Judar Pasha. The fall of the Songhai Empire marked the end of the region's role as a trading crossroads.

Following the establishment of sea routes by the European powers, the trans-Saharan trade routes lost significance. One of the worst famines in the region's recorded history occurred in the 18th century. According to John Iliffe, "The worst crises were in the 1680s, when famine extended from the Senegambian coast to the Upper Nile and'many sold themselves for slaves, only to get a sustenance', in 1738–1756, when West Africa's greatest recorded subsistence crisis, due to drought and locusts killed half the population of Timbuktu." Mali fell under the control of France during the late 19th century. By 1905, most of the area was under firm French control as a part of French Sudan. In early 1959, French Sudan and Senegal united to become the Mali Federation; the Mali Federation gained independence from France on 20 June 1960. Senegal withdrew from the federation in August 1960, which allowed the Sudanese Repub

The Pulaski Day Parade is a parade held annually since 1936 on Fifth Avenue in New York City to commemorate Kazimierz Pulaski, a Polish hero of the American Revolutionary War. It is held on the first Sunday of October and coincides with the October 11th General Pulaski Memorial Day, a national observance of his death at the Siege of Savannah; the parade features Polish dancers, Polish Supplementary schools and organizations, Polish soccer teams and their mascots, Polish Scouts, Polish Government ambassadors and representatives. The Parade was first held in 1937, its founder was Francis J. Wazeter, president of the Downstate New York division of the Polish American Congress, it is one of the oldest ethnic parades in NYC. Casimir Pulaski Day, a holiday celebrated in the Midwestern U. S. commemorating Pulaski's March 4 birthday Official website

Thomas Vincent Dunlea was an Irish-Australian Catholic priest known for his involvement in charitable works. Dunlea was born in Ireland, to Michael and Bridget Dunlea, he attended primary school in High School at Mount St Joseph's Monastery in Roscrea. In 1914 he entered the College of a Cistercian seminary, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on 20 June 1920. In 1920 he set off on the RMS Olympic arriving in Australia in December; some of his appointments were: 1921 Mary Magdalene parish, Rose Bay 1922 Sutherland, Surrey Hills 1932 Newtown, Golden Grove, Hurstville 1934 Sutherland 1951 Chaplain, Matthew Talbot Hostel for destitute men 1952-68 Hurstville In 1939 he started Boys' Town, New South Wales based on Father Flanagan's Boys Town, Nebraska, USA. In the late 1940s he was working among alcoholics with Dr Sylvester Minogue and Archibald McKinnon of the Darlinghurst reception house. For a time the pioneer Alcoholics Anonymous group met in the Boys' Town city office and at other locations found by Dunlea.

A bush camp for alcoholics and a residential'Christmas House' both collapsed, which seemed to prove that a controlled environment was not the answer to alcoholism. Boys' Town fund-raising functions had sharpened Dunlea's own drinking problems and he came to recognize that he himself was an alcoholic. In 1950 he took a year's leave of absence to wander around Australia. On his return, Dunlea became chaplain to the Matthew Talbot Hostel for destitute men. There his listening kindness was given full stretch. In 1952 he went to Hurstville as parish priest, devoting his time to A. A. to a new organization for people with psychiatric problems, Recovery Group, as well as to a menagerie of odd animals.'When Tom Dunlea doesn't take an interest in stray dogs any longer', he said,'you'll know that he's had it'. He was buried in Woronora cemetery; the congregation which attended his reburial at Boys' Town on 7 September included a pet sheep and a stray dog. In 1965 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

He received the Jewish Cross of Honour and the Papal Cross of Honour Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice. When Fr. Chris Riley started a detox centre, he named it the Dunlea Adolescent Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Program. In 2010 the name of Boys' Town was changed to the Dunlea Centre. McSweeney, J. A welcome on the mat. OMP Publishers 2004. Austen, M.. Father Dunlea and Those with a Drinking Problem, New South Wales, 1987. Coleman, D. Priest of the Highway, Sydney, 1973. Halliday, D. Father Dunlea's Approach to Dealing with Young People in Difficulties, New South Wales, 1987. McKinnon, A, they Chose Freedom, Bonnell's Bay, New South Wales, c.1985. Edmund Campion,'Dunlea, Thomas Vincent', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 14, Melbourne University Press, 1996, pp 56–57. Boys Town More on Dunlea and AA