French "Society"

Bora Bora

September

What is the name of this "first-born" island?

Surrounded by a barrier reef and a lagoon, this island -- one of the Society Islands of French Polynesia -- is 12 square miles in size. Its name, in the local Tahitian dialect, means "first born."

Explorer Jakob Roggeveen was the first European to visit the island in 1722. James Cook arrived about a half-century later, and the London Missionary Society first sent missionaries to the island in 1820. An independent kingdom until 1888, it was then annexed as a colony by the French.

Where Ballplayers Are Born and Raised

The Dominican Republic

August

What is the name of this Caribbean jewel?

This Caribbean nation occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles. (The western three-eighths is occupied by Haiti.) It is the second-largest Caribbean nation (after Cuba), with a population of 10.4 million.

Christopher Columbus landed here on Dec. 5, 1492, and it became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas. It is now the most visited destination in the Caribbean, with its temperate climate and year-round golf courses, though baseball is its sport of choice.

Sharks Galore

Republic of Palau

July

What is the name of this shark-loving island nation?

This island country consists of approximately 250 islands that form the western chain of the Caroline Islands in Micronesia. It shares maritime boundaries with nearby Indonesia and the Philippines.

The U.S. captured this country from Japan in 1944 after the devastating Battle of Pelelieu, where more than 2.000 Americans and 10,000 Japanese lost their lives. It became its own republic in 1981, and in 2009 it created the world's first shark sanctuary, banning all commercial shark fishing within its waters.

Adam & Eve's Home Before the Fall?

Praslin Island