Rafael Trujillo, the often blood-thirsty dictator of the Dominican Republic for 31 years, perhaps deserved his fate in an even-handed appraisal of history.

The recent history of the Dominican Republic is an almost classical study of the way in which even a professedly benevolent dictatorship tends to become oppressive.

The Dominican Republic could turn toward Communist-type authoritarianism as easily as toward Western freedom.

For that reason any democratic reform and effort to bring genuine representative government to the Dominican Republic will need the greatest sympathy and help.

If the Dominican Republic achieves free, democratic government, it will be due in large part to the U.S. show of force that enabled President Balaguer to prevent a threatened restoration of Trujillo dictatorship.

In some countries the trend has gone further than others: Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela are displaying open sympathy for Castroism, and there is no country -- save the Dominican Republic whose funeral services we recently arranged -- where Castroism and Anti-Americanism does not prevent the government from unqualifiedly espousing the American cause.

The southern arrows bend northward just east of the Dominican Republic before straightening out again.

Countries where ASL or a derivative of ASL is the national or a widespread language include Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana ( with BSL ), Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d ' Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Kenya ( minority use ), Liberia, Madagascar ( minority use ), Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Philippines ( L2 use ), Puerto Rico, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Trinidad and Tobago, Togo, and Zimbabwe ( with ZSL ).

Worry beads ( masbaha ) made of Dominican Republic blue amber.

Amber jewellery from Dominican Republic

* Adrián Beltré, Dominican Republic baseball player

* Restoration Day ( Dominican Republic )

* 1965 – United States occupation of the Dominican Republic: American troops land in the Dominican Republic to " forestall establishment of a Communist dictatorship " and to evacuate U. S. Army troops.

* 1946 – An earthquake of magnitude 8. 0 hits northern Dominican Republic.

* Alexandra Caso ( born 1987 ), Dominican Republic volleyball player

* 1965 – Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic when Colonel Francisco Caamaño, overthrows the triumvirate that had been in power since the coup d ' état against Juan Bosch.

ARIN formerly covered Argentina, Aruba, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Dutch West Indies, Ecuador, El Salvador, Falkland Islands ( UK ), French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela until LACNIC was formed.

About 5 % of the population is of Hispanic origin, regardless of race, primarily from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

With a $ 1. 92-billion-a-year tourism industry, Costa Rica stands as the most visited nation in the Central American region, with 1. 9 million foreign visitors in 2007, thus reaching a rate of foreign tourists per capita of 0. 46, one of the highest in the Caribbean Basin, and above other popular destinations such as Mexico ( 0. 21 ), Dominican Republic ( 0. 38 ), and Brazil ( 0. 03 ).

Costa Rica joined other Central American countries, plus the Dominican Republic, in establishing a Trade and Investment Council with the United States in March 1998.

Had U.S. warships not appeared off the Dominican coast, there is every possibility that the country would now be wracked by civil war.

Dominican amber, especially Dominican blue amber, is mined through bell pitting, which is dangerous due to the risk of tunnel collapse.

Although all Dominican amber is fluorescent, the rarest Dominican amber is blue amber.

Its most familiar representative is Dominican amber.

Resin from the extinct species Hymenaea protera is the source of Dominican amber and probably of most amber found in the tropics.

St. Raymond of Penyafort ( 1175 – 1275 ), a Spanish Dominican priest, is the patron saint of canonists, due to his important contributions to the science of canon law.

Cable television in the Dominican Republic is provided by a variety of companies.

The main service provider in the Dominican Republic is Telecable from Tricom.

Aster is concentrated in Santo Domingo, but is expanding its service throughout the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic ( Spanish: República Dominicana ) is a country in the West Indies that occupies the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola.

The land border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which occupies the western one-third of the island, is 388 km long.

: Shares island of Hispaniola with Haiti ( eastern two-thirds is the Dominican Republic, western one-third is Haiti )

The Dominican Republic is occasionally damaged by tropical storms and hurricanes, which originate in the mid-Atlantic and southeastern Caribbean from June until November ( mainly from August to October ) each year.

André de Longjumeau ( also known as Andrew of Longjumeau in English ) was a 13th century Dominican missionary and diplomat and one of the most active Occidental diplomats in the East in the 13th century.

There were also large deposits of gypsum near Salt Mountain, making the Dominican Republic one of three sources of gypsum in the Caribbean.

The Dominican Republic is considered one of the countries with the most advanced telecommunications infrastructures in Latin America, with over 8. 9 million cell phones connected ( on just about 10 million populants, with 3. 5 million of them on extreme poverty conditions ) and large companies like Codetel and Orange ( FR ) on the telecommunications market.

* Haina Occidental Port, located just 20 km west of Santo Domingo, is one of the most important port in the Dominican Republic.

For English Dominican mystics, the mystical experience was not expressed just in one moment of the full knowledge of God, but in the journey of, or process of, faith.

It became one of the poorest countries in the Americas, while the Dominican Republic gradually has developed into the largest economy of Central America and the Caribbean.

During his time in Strasbourg, Calvin was not attached to one particular church, but held his office successively in the Saint-Nicolas Church, the Sainte-Madeleine Church and the former Dominican Church, renamed the Temple Neuf.

As prior of more than one Dominican priory during a time of great moral laxity, he insisted on discipline, and, in accordance with his own wishes, he was appointed inquisitor at Como.

Of the nineteen Gorcum martyrs, eleven were Franciscan priests ; Peter Ascanius and Cornelius Vican, laymen ; one Dominican, two Premonstratensian monks, a regular canon of Saint Augustine, and four secular parish priests.

It means: Today the flower of the same name of the revolutionary group is considered one of the national symbols of the Dominican Republic.

Dominican Carnival is celebrated in most cities and towns in the Dominican Republic. This is one of the many variations of the " Diablo Cojuelo ".

One of the most international parades in the Dominican Republic is the one in San Pedro de Macoris that exhibits the " Guloyas ", which are considered cultural heritage of the world.

Later, the Valladolid controversy opposed the Dominican priest Bartolomé de Las Casas to another Dominican philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, the first one arguing that Native Americans were beings doted with souls, as all other human beings, while the latter argued to the contrary and justified their enslavement.

The campaign was one of the nastiest in Dominican history.

Indeed, he is, in many ways, the father of Dominican democracy " and Jimmy Carter complimented him saying " President Balaguer has set an example for all leaders in this nation in changing his own country and his own people away from a former totalitarian government to one of increasingly pure democracy.

In addition to this trade with the US, the coup regime was supported by massive profits from the drug trade thanks to the Haitian military's affiliation with the Cali Cartel and the drug-affiliated government in the neighboring Dominican Republic ; Aristide publicly stated that his own pursuit of arresting drug dealers was one event that prompted the coup by drug-affiliated military officials Raul Cedras and Michel Francois ( a claim echoed by his former Secretary of State Patrick Elie ).

* A cavalier, or kavalyé, is one of the dancers in the Dominican folk dance bélé

The Dominican Republic has 31 provinces ( provincias ) and one National District * ( Distrito Nacional ): Azua, Baoruco, Barahona, Dajabón, Duarte, El Seibo, Elías Piña, Espaillat, Hato Mayor, Independencia, La Altagracia, La Romana, La Vega, María Trinidad Sánchez, Monseñor Nouel, Monte Cristi, Monte Plata, Pedernales, Peravia, Puerto Plata, Hermanas Mirabal, Samaná, Sánchez Ramírez, San Cristóbal, San José de Ocoa, San Juan, San Pedro de Macorís, Santiago, Santiago Rodríguez, Santo Domingo, Distrito Nacional, and Valverde.

He also owns homes in the Caribbean, including one in the upscale community of Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic.

A community of Dominicans arrived in the mid-13th century and gradually extended the size of their priory, which was one of three Dominican priories in the county of Suffolk.

Blackfriars, Oxford houses three distinct institutions: the Priory of the Holy Spirit, the religious house of the friars, whose current prior is John O ' Connor OP ; Blackfriars Studium, the centre of Theological studies of the English Province of the Dominican Friars ( although it numbers members of other orders and lay people among its students and lecturers ); and Blackfriars Hall, one of the constituent educational institutions of the University of Oxford.