Wherio #5 — July 17th, 2026

Jomo Kenyatta became the founding father of independent Kenya, serving first as prime minister and then as the country’s first president from 1964 until his death in 1978. The Kikuyu-born anti-colonial activist had been jailed and detained by British authorities for roughly seven years during the Mau Mau era before leading the Kenya African National Union to power. He presided over Kenya’s transformation from a British colony into an independent republic, though his government’s record included violent repression of ethnic minorities. Nairobi’s international airport bears his name today.

Geography clue given: The Great Rift Valley cuts through this equator-straddling country.

Charles Lindbergh touched down at Le Bourget airfield outside Paris, completing the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic. Flying alone for more than 33 hours from New York in the Spirit of St. Louis, a plane built to chase the 25,000 dollar Orteig Prize, the 25-year-old American covered about 3,600 miles and set a new flight distance world record. A crowd of some 100,000 people mobbed the aircraft on landing. The flight made Lindbergh one of the most famous people on Earth and signaled the coming era of intercontinental air travel.

Geography clue given: Its simple blue-white-red vertical tricolour inspired flags worldwide.

The French cargo ship Mont-Blanc, packed with high explosives, collided with the Norwegian vessel Imo in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, caught fire, and detonated. The blast flattened the city’s Richmond district, killed nearly 1,800 people, and injured an estimated 9,000 more, making it the largest human-made explosion before the atomic bomb, with energy equivalent to roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT. The disaster reshaped disaster response in Canada, and Halifax still sends a Christmas tree to Boston each year in thanks for the medical aid the city rushed north.

Geography clue given: It has the longest coastline of any country in the world.

The Treaty of Windsor bound the kingdoms of Portugal and England in a pact of mutual support, creating what is often called the world’s oldest alliance still in force. Sealed at Windsor and cemented by the marriage of King John I of Portugal to Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, the alliance followed Portugal’s victory at the Battle of Aljubarrota, won with the help of English archers. Winston Churchill described the Anglo-Portuguese alliance in 1943 as one without parallel in world history, and copies of the treaty survive in Lisbon and London.

Geography clue given: It is mainland Europe's westernmost country.

Teaching began at Bologna in what became the University of Bologna, the oldest university in continuous operation in the world and the first degree-awarding institution of higher learning. Its famed law schools drew students from across Europe, who organized themselves into guilds that gave the medieval university its structure. The institution’s Latin motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, or nourishing mother of studies, nods to that pioneering role. Bologna also saw the first woman to earn a university degree and teach at a university, and today it enrolls over 90,000 students, among Europe’s largest.

Geography clue given: Two independent states lie entirely surrounded by its territory.