Word: hispaniola
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...Haiti's rainfall. The northeast trade winds, and so the rain, blow in the Dominican Republic's favor. Haiti's semiarid climate makes cultivation more challenging. Deforestation - a major problem in Haiti, but not in its neighbor - has only exacerbated the problem. Other differences are a result of Hispaniola's long and often violent history - even TIME called it a "forlorn, hate-filled little Caribbean island" in 1965. On the eastern part of Hispaniola, you'll probably speak Spanish; in the west, it's more likely to be French or Creole, a division that's the result of centuries...
...Club that the nation's history of catastrophes owed to a "pact with the devil" that its residents had made some 200 years ago. How else to explain why Haiti suffers, while the Dominican Republic - which shares the 30,000 sq. mi. of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola - is relatively well-off? "That island of Hispaniola is one island," Robertson said. "The Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty." (See why Pat Robertson blames Haiti for the earthquake...
...which combines a variety of welfare measurements; Haiti comes in at 149th. In the Dominican Republic, average life expectancy is nearly 74 years. In Haiti, it's 61. You're substantially more likely to be able to read and write if you live in the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola, and less likely to live on less than $1.25 a day. (See TIME's exclusive pictures from the Haiti earthquake...
...revolution raged in France in the 1790s, its colonial slaves in Hispaniola revolted; in 1804, they declared independence, and Haiti, which was named after the Taino word for "land of mountains," became the world's first sovereign black republic. The Dominican Republic wasn't established until 1844, after not just European rule but also 22 years of Haitian occupation. Strife between (as well as within) the neighbors, rooted in deep class, racial and cultural differences, was constant. Interference by foreign powers was often the norm. The Spanish took back the Dominican Republic in the early 1860s, and for periods during...
...faults and patterns of quakes over many years and say where on the landscape they're likeliest to occur next. This forecasting is usually in the long term." Indeed, scientists predicted as recently as 2008 that a fault zone on the south side of Haiti's island of Hispaniola posed a "major seismic hazard...