Belarus is sometimes known as "White Russia".

Mount Dzyarzhynskaya (346 m) is the highest point in Belarus.

The largest lake in Belarus is Lake Naroch.

The Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park is on the World Heritage List. The Pushcha is the remainder of primeval European forest.

Slavic tribes did not arrive in Belarus until the sixth and seventh centuries.

Polotsk is Belarus' oldest city (known since 862).

St Sophia's Cathedral in Polotsk, built between 1044 and 1066, is the oldest monument in Belarus.

Between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, city principalities came under the influence of Kyivan Rus, a powerful Slavic state centred in Kyiv (Ukraine).

Nesvizh Castle was the home of the Radziwills, a prominent family in Belarus. The Architectural, Residential and Cultural Complex of the Radziwill Family was added to the World Heritage List in 2005.

Kastus Kalinovski (1838-1864), said to be the founder of Belorussian nationalism, was hanged after leading a popular uprising in 1863-1864.

L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934), the famous psychologist who worked at the Moscow State University's Institute of Experimental Psychology, was born in Orsha in Belarus.

The Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the founders of the USSR. (The following countries in Europe were members of the former USSR with Russia: Belarus, Estonia (from 2WW), Latvia (from 2WW), Lithuania (from 2WW), Moldova and Ukraine; the following countries in Asia were members of the USSR: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan).

Germany occupied Belarus during the the Second World War. During this time over one million people were killed including most of the country's Jewish population.

At the end of the Second World War some Belarusians who had worked as forced labour in Germany settled in countries in the West.

Olga Korbut, born in Grodno in 1955, was one of the world's most popular gymnasts of the twentieth century.

Belarus suffered from radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident which occurred in 1986 in the Ukraine (USSR).

At the end of 1991 the USSR was dissolved. Belarus became an independent state.

Alexander Lukashenko was elected president re-establishing close ties with Russia.

In 2015 President Lukashenko won a fifth presidential term of office.

On 23 May 2021 a Ryanair flight from Athens, on its way to Vilnius in Lithuania, was diverted to Belarus; journalist Roman Protasevich was arrested.

In Belarus, in the spring of 2024, the government of Alexander Lukashenko faced similar demonstrations taking place in Hungary and Georgia; the size of the crowds could be seen on X (previously Twitter); an unbelievable sea of people.