For years, Honduras was the only nation in the Americas to have an absolute ban on the sale or use of emergency contraception, also known as morning-after or “Plan B” pills.
The government is no longer granting environmental permits for open-pit mining projects, the Ministry of Energy, Natural Resources, Environment and Mines. It also plans to shut down open-pit mines already in operation.
Castro, a democratic socialist, won a landslide victory in last year’s presidential election after campaigning on a radical agenda to counter years of governance plagued by corruption and scandal.
The Act led to the eventual formation of the modern nations of Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
Honduras independence was declared on September 15, 1821, when Central American provinces gathered in Guatemala City and ended nearly three centuries of Spanish rule almost without a shot fired. The act covered five future nations and was negotiated largely by creole elites. It remains the starting point of a long, unfinished conversation about who sovereignty truly serves.
Tegucigalpa was founded on September 29, 1578, when Spanish colonizers staked a mining claim in a mountain-ringed valley already home to the Lenca and Tolupan peoples. Its first mayor took office within a year, and over the next two centuries a cathedral, mint, and churches took root. It would become the capital of Honduras three hundred years later.
In 426 C.E., a warrior-king named K’inich Yax K’uk Mo’ arrived in the Motagua River valley and founded the royal dynasty of Copán in what is now western Honduras. His line endured nearly four centuries, producing at least 16 rulers, a 2,200-glyph hieroglyphic stairway, and astronomical calculations of the Venus cycle that still astonish modern researchers.
