Mauritania

Mauritania stamps, available worldwide at Io Collezionista. The name comes from the Berber tribes of the Mauri, whose kingdom was annexed to the Roman Empire in AD 33 and became part of the province of Mauretania. Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Mauritania too became, against its will, a subject of the colonial partition, falling under French control from 1903. An armed resistance movement later tried to oppose the invaders but was crushed in 1936 with the military occupation of the territory. Independence was won in 1960 but was truly completed only in 1973, with the exit from the franc zone and the creation of the national currency, the ouguiya, in place of the CFA franc.