The Republic of Rose Island was a short-lived micronation on a man-made platform in the Adriatic Sea, 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) off the coast of the province of Emilia-Romagna, Italy, built by Italian engineer Giorgio Rosa, who made himself its president and declared it an independent state on 1 May 1968.
Image: Isoladellerose
Image: Isola delle Rose
Island under construction
Republic of Rose Island
Esperanto is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it is intended to be a universal second language for international communication, or "the international language". Zamenhof first described the language in Dr. Esperanto's International Language, which he published under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto. Early adopters of the language liked the name Esperanto and soon used it to describe his language. The word esperanto translates into English as "one who hopes".
7th Esperanto congress, Antwerp, August 1911
The Republic of Rose Island used Esperanto as its official language in 1968
Esperanto books at the World Esperanto Congress, Rotterdam 2008
Hungarian Cosmonaut Bertalan Farkas, the first Esperantist in space