Micronesia

The Federated States of Micronesia is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean which, like many island nations in the Pacific Ocean, is probably not worth the time or effort it'll take to write this entry (admittedly not very much to begin with). Much of Micronesia was once ruled by the Saudeleur, a mighty(ish) empire built around the island of Yap. The Saudeleur capital was Nan Madol, a now-ruined city off the shore of Pohnpei, which is apparently referred to by some as the Venice of the Pacific, a title which is a lot more impressive if you don't realize that the only requirement for being the Venice of something is that the city be impossible to navigate without a canoe. Micronesia became an independent state in 1986, but still has an economy based largely on the United States mailing it a giant check every year.

Micronesia's most famous residents include Cthulu, a cosmic being of unspeakable evil who used to rent an apartment in Nan Madol.

Mexico

Mexico is a North American nation, the Americas' fifth-largest by area and home to the world's largest Mexican-speaking population. Mexico has a long and rich history, with evidence of human presence dating back as far as 21,000 BC (or: 17,000 years before Jesus invented the universe). More recently, Mexico was home to great civilizations like the Aztecs, whose kings used to eat human hearts and draw blood from their scrotums in their spare time, and the Mayans, who are going to look really dumb if any of us are still alive in 2013. These cultures dominated modern-day Mexico until the arrival of Hernán Cortés, a Spaniard who was annoyed with the lack of opportunities to indiscriminately murder people in his homeland. During his conquest of the Aztecs, Cortés also succeeded in popularizing smallpox, which was all the rage in the 1520s. A more sustainable trend was Catholicism, which remains popular in Mexico to this day. This backfired in 1810, when an uppity priest named Miguel began an uprising for Mexican independence, to which the Spaniards replied "Okay, we'll leave in like ten years, but first we're gonna shoot you." And they did. The first Mexican Constitution was drafted in 1824, but that didn't last long before it was dissolved by Santa Anna, a rotten dude who also killed Davy Crockett. Mexico gave the whole constitution thing another go in 1917 and it seems to have at least sort of stuck this time around. This development (and NAFTA) notwithstanding, Mexico is currently a scary place, rife with tumult, uncertainty, and things similar to tumult and uncertainty, in which you're about as likely to be employed as you are to be beheaded and abandoned in the desert.

Mexico's primary resources include natural gas and good times for drunk white people.

Mauritius

Mauritius is an island nation located in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar. Though known of as early as the tenth century (Author's Note: You guys, that's a MILLENNIUM ago!), the island remained uninhabited for the next 700 years before anyone thought of a particularly compelling reason to live there. In 1638, the Dutch were the first to settle the island, establishing a settlement on Mauritius for no real reason other than the fact that it was not made of salt water. The shitty climate and isolated location gave these early settlers some pretty immediate buyer's remorse, but the Dutch hung around for awhile because they had some serious codependency issues and just weren't all that bright. In the end, they packed up all their Dutch stuff and got out of Dutch Dodge in 1710. People live there again now though, I guess. Like a million of 'em. I'm not sure who they are, or what their deal is.

Mauritius was the only known home of the dodo, an extinct bird whose existence served only to prove that God has a really mean sense of humor.

Mauritania

Mauritania is a Muslim, Arabic-speaking country in north Africa whose name is derived from the Latin word "Mauri," which comes from the English term "Moors" - not this guy. Despite a rather healthy oil reserve discovered off the country's Atlantic coastline in 2001, Mauritania remains a very poor country, with about a fifth of the population living on under $1.25 a day. I know, right? It's like, don't they realize that that's not nearly enough? Jeez. The first president was Ould Daddah, who annexed the southern portion of Western Sahara as part of a diabolical plot to corner the international market for rocks and dirt. His overthrow in 1978 established military coups as Mauritania's national pastime. They were all the rage until 1984, when Ould Taya took control of the country and declared "Relative political stability is the new constant upheaval." A 2005 coup brought fear and uncertainty back into style. That coup worked out so well that Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz decided to try another one in 2008.

Mauritania's presidency has changed hands eight times in the time it took to write this entry.

Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands is an island nation in the Pacific Ocean. Boy, that sounds interesting, doesn't it? Wait, there's more! The Marshall Islands were originally settled in the 2nd millennium BC by Micronesians, who had way too much time on their hands. Literally nothing else happened between then and 1526, when the islands were stumbled upon by Alonso Salazar, a doomed Spanish explorer who was probably in no way excited to have been the first European to discover the Marshall Islands. If anything, he probably said something like "Oh look, an island that we did not previously know was there. Let's name it something and get outta here." He named it San Bartolome, after the patron saint of honestly not caring at all. In 1788, and English captain, John Marshall, arrived and named the islands after himself. For some reason, that's the name the stuck. After that, some other stuff happened.

Following World War II, the United States used the Marshall Islands' Bikini Atoll to practice blowing shit up on. The results have been documented in Wes Craven's horror classic, "The Marshall Islands Have Eyes."

Malta

Malta is a European nation comprised by a handful of islands in the Mediterranean. Due to its strategic location due south of Sicily, Malta has been a military stronghold throughout history for numerous empires who were hoping for a good look at what those sneaky Italians were up to and, on occasion, for those sneaky Italians, who are just kind of narcissistic if you ask me. Throughout the 19th century, Malta's economy was based on cotton, shipbuilding, and "what dreams are made of" (Author's Note: That's a Humphrey Bogart reference. Ask your parents). The latter resource is no longer available, owing to the events of World War II, when the Maltese archipelago got blowed up real good and flooded the Mediterranean with dreams (it took years for the southern European fishing industry to recover). Malta has a rich religious history, thought by many Christian scholars to be a place where St. John once went by accident when he was shipwrecked on his way to, I dunno, the Cannes Film Festival or something. Malta is also home to the Megalithic Temples, the oldest free-standing structures in Europe.

The Megalithic Temples were built more than 3000 years before the invention of Jesus Christ, so it pretty much goes without saying that whoever built them is in Hell now. Whoops.

Mali

Mali is a west African nation with a population of about 14.5 million folks, most of whom live in the southwestern portion of the country (also known as "the part that is not so much a terrible terrible desert"). Named for the "great" Mali Empire, which used to be hot shit way back in the day but is now not even a thing, Mali is a former French colony and one of the best places to go if you're into awesome shimmery robes. Despite being one of the poorest countries in the world, Mali has seen a great deal of economic growth over the past fifteen years, experiencing an annual GDP increase of 17.6% (which is apparently quite a lot). This has inspired the national motto, "Un peuple, un but, une foi," which is French for "Don't call it a comeback; we've been here all along." Mali's capital is Bamako, but a better-known Malian city is Timbuktu, which you probably thought was just a colloquial synonym for "Kingdom Come" or "A Significant Distance from Here" and not actually a real place. Think again (you are dumb).

Timbuktu (a real place).