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Show OLDEST CITY TO CELEBRATE 450TII BIRTHDAY The oldest city in the Western Hemisphere, Ciudad Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, will celebrate its -150th anniversary on Sunday, August 4. We boosters for Colonial Colon-ial Virginia and Plymouth, Mass., fix up our date in 1G07 and 1620. gut there are close to 2 million people, proud that they came first in the Dominican Republic. A 3-masted 3-masted caravel, modeled after one of Columbus' ships, will sail up the Ozama river next month to re-enact re-enact the founding of Western Civilization's first permanent site. Wearing late 15th century costumes, cos-tumes, sailors will moor the ship to a replica of the tree used by Columbus' brother, Bartolome, when he founded the city of Santo San-to Domingo in 1496. The ceremony will open with a colorful water pageant featuring flower-decked floats and will be highlighted with an address by Dr. Rafael Trujillo, President of the Dominican Republic. Re-public. Originally called Santo Domingo, the people of the city renamed it after President Trujillo, in spite of his protest, because his government govern-ment rebuilt it along modern lines after a hurricane in 1930 had completely com-pletely demolished the city. The Dominican s Republic will celebrate the anniversary with a deep pride In their capital city's long history but they are even prouder of its modernity and up-to-dateness. Although the city has the moss-covered ruins of some of the first buildings in America, it also has modern structures, spacious spa-cious boulevards, suspension bridges brid-ges and some of the finest hospitals hospi-tals and best schools in the world. The land of the island is fertile, producing sugar, cacao, coffee, rice, corn 'and tobacco in great quantities. The Dominicans stand high in Washington deservedly so; they declared war on Japan and Germany, Ger-many, Dec. 8 and 11, 1941. |