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History
Ancient Persian texts suggest the Bakpites and the Aktites were smiting one another before the Flood, thus establishing a proud tradition of smiting that continues to this day. Throughout history, potential invaders, from Genghis Khan to Queen Victoria, avoided this collection of inbreeding, infighting tribes like the plague (incidentally, the plague is thought to have originated here).
In the late 15th century, a strapping youth born into a family of lonely goatherds became Bakpakhistan's first and only national hero. Notable firstly for being born a strapping youth, Thisus Peyurwahnk (who sometimes operated under the 'revolutionary' name David Collins) earned his place in the country's heart by discovering and patenting the health-giving properties of goat sputum. The country's national dish, chyme, is a direct descendant of the sputum patties Peyhurwahnk distributed among the picturesque poor of 16th-century Bakpakhistan.
In the 19th century, a half-crazed Danish cobbler who'd been wandering the earth in search of a bedsock for 23 years stumbled into the desert now known as Bakpakhistan and claimed it on behalf of his country. It took the Danes just 13 years to do to Bakpakistan what Belgium did to the Congo in 50 - after plundering the country for all the gravel it was worth, they decided the colonial thing was overrated, and they hightailed it back to Scandinavia.
The country they left behind was so crippled with corruption, cultural impoverishment, abject poverty, endemic disease, ethnic conflict and chronic unemployment that no-one bothered it until the 1970s, when mass tourism and the guidebook publishing industry kicked into overdrive - thus bringing the Danes back for another look. In fact, nobody even claimed independence until 1958, when revolutionary hero Snagult Ufqunt realized the huge borrowing potential the country had. He set up a Communist Party, put on some booze, called it an election and became richer than his wildest dreams. Posters of Ufqunt are now ubiquitous throughout the country; he's usually depicted staring into the sunset, flanked by IMF officials and evangelist missionaries.
To be fair, the country's reputation for backwardness has recently taken a battering: in 1999, it moved up from the bottom of the world poverty list for the first time and, in the words of the Education Minister (the same Snagult Ufqunt), 'Watch out, Albania, because here we come!'
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