Mount Roraima is the highest point in Guyana (2,835 m).
Arawak and Carib tribes were inhabitants of Guyana before the arrival of Europeans.
The Amerindians called the country Guiana, which means land of many waters.
The Essequibo River is the longest river in Guyana.
The Kaieteur Falls, on the Potaro River (a tributary of the Essequibo), has a single drop of over seven hundred and forty feet.
Christopher Columbus, in the service of Spain, sighted Guyana in 1498.
The Dutch, French and British founded settlements in Guyana.
The Dutch built a system of dykes in the coastal region to prevent flooding.
A monument in Georgetown commemorates the slave uprising of 1763.
Guyana became a British Colony in 1831.
Guyana was formerly known as British Guiana.
The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act (1807) prohibited the slave trade within the British Empire. (Slaves in the British colonies did not gain their freedom until the 1830s. The Abolition of Slavery Act (1833) began the process leading to emancipation).
Slave labour was replaced by indentured workers, mainly from East India. People also came from China and Portugal.
Gold was discovered in Guyana in 1879.
The Omai gold mine in Guyana is one of the largest open pit gold mines in South America.
Racial disturbances took place in Guyana in the early 1960s before independence.
Guyana became an independent country in 1966.
In 1970 Guyana became a Republic within the [British] Commonwealth.
Guyana is the only English speaking country in South America.
In 1978 nine hundred members of a religious sect committed mass suicide at Jonestown.
The Government declared the capital a disaster zone in January 2005 when flooding followed days of continuous rain. Over thirty people were killed.