Nature · c. 4,200 years ago
Dodo mass grave predates humans by millennia.
Did you know that the Mare aux Songes marsh in southeast Mauritius holds the bones of hundreds of dodos and giant tortoises that died together about 4,200 years ago during a severe drought, long before any human set foot on the island?
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Geography · 1502
An Arab name on a 1502 map.
Did you know that Mauritius appears on the Portuguese Cantino planisphere of 1502 under the Arabic-derived name Dina Arobi, suggesting that Arab sailors knew of the uninhabited island before any European reached it?
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Geography · 1528
Rodrigues kept a Portuguese navigator's name.
Did you know that Rodrigues, Mauritius's autonomous outer island, still bears the name of the Portuguese navigator Diogo Rodrigues, who recorded the island in 1528, more than 160 years before anyone settled it?
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Heritage · 1598
The island honours a Dutch prince.
Did you know that Mauritius is named after a Dutch prince: Admiral Wybrand van Warwijck landed at Grand Port in 1598 and named the island after Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange and stadtholder of the Dutch Republic?
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Nature · 1598
Sailors called the dodo 'tasteless bird'.
Did you know that the Dutch sailors who first described the dodo in 1598 called it walghvogel, roughly 'tasteless bird', complaining that the longer and more often it was cooked, the tougher and more insipid it became?
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Economy · 1638
Dutch brought sugar cane and deer.
Did you know that the Dutch, who first settled Mauritius at Fort Frederik Hendrik in 1638, introduced sugar cane and Javan rusa deer from Java, laying the foundation of both the island's later sugar economy and its hunting tradition?
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Nature · 1662
Dodo gone within seventy years.
Did you know that the last widely accepted sighting of the dodo was made in 1662 by shipwrecked Dutch sailor Volkert Evertsz on an islet off Mauritius, less than seventy years after Europeans first described the bird?
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Nature · 1691
Rodrigues had its own dodo cousin.
Did you know that the Rodrigues solitaire, a flightless giant pigeon related to the dodo, was described in detail by the Huguenot refugee François Leguat, who lived on Rodrigues from 1691 and saw males fight with knobs on their wings?
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Heritage · 1715
Mauritius was once 'Isle de France'.
Did you know that France claimed Mauritius in 1715 when Captain Guillaume Dufresne d'Arsel landed and renamed the deserted island Isle de France, a name it kept for nearly a century?
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Heritage · 1735
La Bourdonnais built Port Louis.
Did you know that Port Louis became the capital under Governor Bertrand-François Mahé de La Bourdonnais, who arrived in 1735 and turned it into a naval base, shipyard and the French stronghold of the Indian Ocean?
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Culture · 1744
A shipwreck inspired a French bestseller.
Did you know that the 1744 wreck of the French ship Saint-Géran off the northeast coast inspired Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's novel Paul et Virginie, one of the bestselling French books of the late 18th century?
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Science · 1770
Smuggled spices broke a Dutch monopoly.
Did you know that intendant Pierre Poivre used the garden at Pamplemousses to grow cloves and nutmeg smuggled from the Dutch East Indies around 1770, helping break the Dutch monopoly on these valuable spices?
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Society · 1776
Castaways survived fifteen years on Tromelin.
Did you know that after the French ship L'Utile wrecked on tiny Tromelin Island in 1761, the Malagasy slaves left behind survived for fifteen years until 1776, when the Chevalier de Tromelin rescued seven women and an eight-month-old baby?
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Science · 1803–1810
Australia's circumnavigator was held six years.
Did you know that the British navigator Matthew Flinders, the first to circumnavigate Australia, was detained on Isle de France for six and a half years from 1803 because the French governor suspected him of spying?
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Records · 1810
A Mauritian battle on the Arc de Triomphe.
Did you know that the Battle of Grand Port in August 1810 is the only French naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris?
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Language · 1810
British rule kept French law.
Did you know that after Britain captured Mauritius in 1810 it kept French institutions, including the Napoleonic Code, which is why French civil law and the French language still shape Mauritian courts and daily life today?
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Sport · 1812
Southern Hemisphere's oldest racecourse.
Did you know that horses have raced at the Champ de Mars in Port Louis since 1812, the year the Mauritius Turf Club was founded, making it the oldest racecourse in the Southern Hemisphere and reputedly the second oldest in the world?
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Heritage · 1834
Half a million arrived through one depot.
Did you know that around half a million indentured labourers, mostly from India, passed through the Aapravasi Ghat immigration depot in Port Louis between 1849 and 1923, the first site of Britain's 'great experiment' in replacing slaves with indentured workers?
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Society · 1835
Owners, not slaves, were compensated.
Did you know that when slavery was abolished in Mauritius in 1835, slave owners received about £2.1 million in compensation from Britain, while the freed people themselves received nothing at all?
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Science · 1836
Darwin rode an elephant in Mauritius.
Did you know that Charles Darwin stopped at Mauritius aboard HMS Beagle in 1836, found the island 'adorned with an air of perfect elegance', and was sent half-way on an excursion riding an elephant 'in true Indian fashion'?
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Culture · 1841
Baudelaire's Creole lady lived here.
Did you know that the French poet Charles Baudelaire spent several weeks in Mauritius in 1841 and wrote his sonnet 'À une dame créole' for the wife of his host there, a poem later published in Les Fleurs du mal?
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Firsts · 1847
Its first stamps are philatelic treasures.
Did you know that the 1847 Mauritius 'Post Office' stamps were the first British Empire stamps produced outside Great Britain, and with only about two dozen surviving copies they now rank among the most valuable stamps in the world?
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Myth or fact · 1847
The 'Post Office' error is a myth.
Did you know that the popular story that the 1847 Mauritius stamps say 'Post Office' by mistake instead of 'Post Paid' is a legend, as philatelic scholars have shown the wording was intentional and the next issue simply changed it?
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Economy · 1860s
Trains vanished for 55 years.
Did you know that Mauritius built a railway in the 1860s to haul sugar, scrapped it entirely in 1964, and then went without trains for over half a century until the Metro Express light rail began commercial service on 10 January 2020?
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Science · 1865
A teacher's dig rescued the dodo's bones.
Did you know that almost no dodo skeletons existed until 1865, when schoolteacher George Clark dug up a trove of bones at Mare aux Songes, finally giving museums enough material to reconstruct the bird?
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Myth or fact · 1896
Twain's 'heaven' quote was not his view.
Did you know that Mark Twain's famous line that 'Mauritius was made first, and then heaven' was really a boast he heard from a local resident in 1896 and recorded in Following the Equator, immediately noting another islander's view that it was an exaggeration?
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Heritage · 1901
Gandhi stopped in Mauritius in 1901.
Did you know that Mahatma Gandhi visited Mauritius in November 1901 on his way from South Africa to India, urging Indo-Mauritians to educate their children and take part in politics, and later sent the lawyer Manilal Doctor to champion their rights?
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Heritage · 1921
Mauritians once voted on rejoining France.
Did you know that a 'retrocessionist' movement in the 1920s campaigned for Mauritius to be handed back to France, but its candidates were defeated in the 1921 elections, ending the idea of retrocession?
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Society · 1936
A doctor founded the Labour Party.
Did you know that the Mauritius Labour Party, which would lead the island to independence, was founded in 1936 by the doctor Maurice Curé, a Creole, to defend sugar workers and dockers?
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Society · 1937
A cane variety sparked deadly riots.
Did you know that the 1937 Uba riots erupted when sugar mills cut the price paid for the hardy Uba cane variety by about 15 percent, and the deaths at Union Flacq led Britain to legalise trade unions in Mauritius in 1938?
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Heritage · 1943
Slain striker's name graces a stadium.
Did you know that Anjalay Coopen, a 32-year-old pregnant labourer killed when police opened fire on strikers at the Belle Vue Harel sugar estate in 1943, is honoured with statues and the national Anjalay Stadium?
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Society · 1948
Writing your name won you the vote.
Did you know that the 1947 constitution, first used at the 1948 election, extended the vote to every adult who could write their name in any of the island's languages, a change that let Indo-Mauritian and Creole candidates break the old elite's hold on the council?
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Heritage · 1965
Chagos was split off for £3 million.
Did you know that in 1965, before granting independence, Britain detached the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in exchange for £3 million, so that the United States could build a military base on Diego Garcia?
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Society · 1967
Independence passed by a narrow vote.
Did you know that independence was effectively decided at the 1967 general election, when the pro-independence alliance led by Seewoosagur Ramgoolam won about 54 percent of the vote against the anti-independence Parti Mauricien Social Démocrate?
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Culture · 1968
Four stripes, each with a meaning.
Did you know that the four equal stripes of the Mauritian flag, raised at independence on 12 March 1968, stand for the struggle for freedom (red), the Indian Ocean (blue), the light of independence (yellow) and agriculture (green)?
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Society · 1968–1973
An entire people was deported.
Did you know that between 1968 and 1973 Britain removed the entire population of the Chagos Archipelago, roughly 1,500 to 2,000 people, many of whom were taken to Mauritius and the Seychelles?
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Nature · 1974
From four birds to hundreds.
Did you know that in 1974 only four Mauritius kestrels were left in the wild, when it was considered the rarest bird in the world, yet captive breeding and release lifted the population to roughly 400 birds by 2019?
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Myth or fact · 1977
The dodo-tree story is mostly myth.
Did you know that the famous 1977 hypothesis that the tambalacoque tree could only germinate after its seeds passed through a dodo's gut has been discredited, as tambalacoque seeds had already been reported germinating in the 1940s?
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Records · 1982
A 60-0 clean sweep.
Did you know that in the 1982 general election the MMM–PSM alliance won all 60 elected seats on the main island, a 60–0 clean sweep that removed Seewoosagur Ramgoolam after 14 years as prime minister?
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Nature · 1980s
The rarest parrot staged a comeback.
Did you know that the echo parakeet, the last surviving native parrot of the Mascarene Islands, fell to as few as eight to twelve birds in the 1980s, but intensive conservation had raised its wild population to about 750 by 2019?
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Heritage · 1992
Republic Day matches Independence Day.
Did you know that Mauritius became a republic on 12 March 1992, exactly 24 years after independence, replacing Queen Elizabeth II as head of state with a president, first Veerasamy Ringadoo?
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Heritage · 2006
Mauritius's first World Heritage Site.
Did you know that the Aapravasi Ghat in Port Louis became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006, the first in Mauritius, recognised as a memorial to the global indentured labour system?
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Myth or fact · 2008
A tragic legend of freedom misunderstood.
Did you know that Le Morne Brabant, a UNESCO site since 2008, is tied to the legend that runaway slaves hiding there leapt to their deaths when soldiers arrived in 1835, not knowing the soldiers had come to announce their freedom?
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Sport · 2008
One Olympic medal, won by a boxer.
Did you know that Mauritius won its first and so far only Olympic medal in 2008, when boxer Bruno Julie took bronze in the bantamweight division at the Beijing Games?
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Culture · 2014
Sega joined UNESCO's heritage list.
Did you know that traditional Mauritian sega, the music and dance born among enslaved Africans and Malagasy and played on the ravanne frame drum, was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2014?
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Firsts · 2015
A botanist became the first woman president.
Did you know that Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, a biodiversity scientist who catalogued the medicinal plants of the Indian Ocean islands, became Mauritius's first female president in 2015?
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Culture · 2016
Bhojpuri wedding songs gained UNESCO status.
Did you know that Geet-Gawai, the Bhojpuri wedding songs and rituals sung by women before Hindu weddings in Mauritius, was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2016?
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Heritage · 2019
World Court backed Mauritius 13 to 1.
Did you know that in 2019 the International Court of Justice advised, by 13 votes to 1, that Britain's separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 was unlawful and that it should end its administration as rapidly as possible?
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Nature · 2020
A grounded ship spilled oil near wetlands.
Did you know that the bulk carrier MV Wakashio ran aground on the reef off Pointe d'Esny in July 2020 and spilled about 1,000 tonnes of oil near protected wetlands, prompting Mauritius to declare an environmental emergency?
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Economy · 2024
Remote Agaléga got an Indian-built airstrip.
Did you know that in February 2024 India and Mauritius inaugurated a new airstrip and jetty on remote Agaléga, two small islands about 1,050 kilometres north of Mauritius that are home to only about 330 people?
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Records · 2024
Another 60-0 sweep, 42 years later.
Did you know that in the November 2024 general election Navin Ramgoolam's Alliance du Changement repeated the 1982 feat by winning all 60 elected seats on the main island, ousting Pravind Jugnauth's government?
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Heritage · 2025
The Chagos handover treaty stalled.
Did you know that Britain and Mauritius signed a treaty on 22 May 2025 to return the Chagos Archipelago with a 99-year lease of Diego Garcia, but Britain shelved the ratifying legislation in 2026 after the United States withdrew support?
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Myth or fact · timeless
The underwater waterfall is an illusion.
Did you know that the famous 'underwater waterfall' off Le Morne peninsula is an optical illusion: sand and silt sliding down the steep underwater shelf create the impression, best seen from the air, of water plunging into an abyss?
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Geography · timeless
Sands that unmix themselves.
Did you know that the Seven Coloured Earths of Chamarel are sand dunes of red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow, formed as volcanic basalt weathered into clay, and the colours separate again after being mixed?
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Nature · timeless
Ten pigeons became hundreds.
Did you know that the pink pigeon, found only in Mauritius, had dropped to just ten birds in 1991 but recovered to about 400 in the wild by 2018 through captive breeding, one of the island's great conservation successes?
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Nature · timeless
Last of an entire snake family.
Did you know that Round Island, a small islet off northern Mauritius, is the last home of the Round Island boa, the only surviving member of a snake family whose only other species, the Round Island burrowing boa, went extinct?
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Nature · timeless
Water lilies bigger than tables.
Did you know that the botanical garden at Pamplemousses, the oldest botanical garden in the Southern Hemisphere, is famous for its long pond of giant Amazon water lilies, whose floating leaves can grow up to about three metres across?
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Culture · timeless
Pilgrims walk to a sacred crater lake.
Did you know that Ganga Talao, a crater lake at Grand Bassin, is the holiest Hindu site in Mauritius, where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims walk each year for Maha Shivaratri, many carrying ornate wooden kanwars?
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Society · timeless
Africa's only Hindu-plurality nation.
Did you know that Mauritius is the only country in Africa where Hinduism is the most practised religion, followed by close to half of the population, most of them descendants of Indian indentured labourers?
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Language · timeless
No official language, many in use.
Did you know that Mauritius has no official language in its constitution, which only names English as the language of the National Assembly while also allowing French, so Kreol, English, French and Bhojpuri all coexist daily?
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Culture · timeless
Dholl puri is the island's street favourite.
Did you know that dholl puri, a thin flatbread stuffed with ground yellow split peas and served with bean curry and chutney, is widely seen as the Mauritian national street food and shows the island's Indian roots?
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Myth or fact · timeless
The dodo was not that fat.
Did you know that the popular image of a fat, clumsy dodo largely comes from 17th-century paintings of overfed captive birds, while studies of its bones suggest the wild bird was leaner and more agile?
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Culture · timeless
An extinct bird holds up the arms.
Did you know that the extinct dodo appears as a supporter on the Mauritian coat of arms, alongside a sambar deer, and has become the island's unofficial mascot and a worldwide symbol of extinction?
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Geography · timeless
Coral islets home only to fishermen.
Did you know that St Brandon, or Cargados Carajos, about 430 kilometres northeast of Mauritius, is a shifting chain of some 28 to 40 coral islets with a land area of just over a square kilometre, inhabited only by a few dozen fishermen?
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Geography · timeless
Born from the Réunion hotspot.
Did you know that Mauritius is a volcanic island that began to emerge from the ocean about 8 million years ago over the same hotspot that today feeds the very active Piton de la Fournaise volcano on neighbouring Réunion?
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Records · timeless
A tiny land with a vast sea.
Did you know that Mauritius's exclusive economic zone covers about 2.3 million square kilometres of ocean, well over a thousand times the country's land area of roughly 2,040 square kilometres?
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