Banjul (formerly Bathurst), officially the City of Banjul, is the capital of The Gambia, and is in the division of the same name. The population of the city proper is only 34,828, with the Greater Banjul Area, which includes the City of Banjul and the Kanifing Municipal Council, at a population of 357,238 (2003 census). Banjul is on St Mary's Island (Banjul Island), where the Gambia River enters the Atlantic Ocean. The island is connected to the mainland — by passenger and vehicle ferries to the north and by bridges to the south.

Banjul takes its name from the Mandé people who gathered specific fibres on the island, which were used in the manufacture of ropes. Bang julo is the Mandinka (Mande) word for rope fibre. The mispronunciation led to the word Banjul.^{[citation needed]}

In 1651 Banjul was leased by the Duke of Courland from the king of Kombo, as part of Courland colonization.

In 1816, the British founded Banjul as a trading post and base for suppressing the slave trade. The British renamed the Banjul Island to St. Mary and first named Bathurst after Henry Bathurst, the secretary of the British Colonial Office, but was changed to Banjul in 1973.

Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) of Melbourne, Derbyshire, England founded the travel agency that in 2007 became Thomas Cook Group.

Thomas Cook was born to John and Elizabeth Cook, who lived at 9 Quick Close in the village of Melbourne, Derbyshire. The couple's first child, he was named after Elizabeth's father, Thomas Perkins. John Cook died when Thomas was three years old, and his mother remarried later that same year.

At the age of 10, Cook started working as an assistant to a local market gardener for a wage of six pence a week. At the age of 14, he secured an apprenticeship with John Pegg, and spent five years as a cabinet maker.

He was brought up as a strict Baptist, and joined his local Temperance Society. In February 1826, Cook became a preacher, and toured the region as a village evangelist, distributing pamphlets, and occasionally working as a cabinet maker to earn money. After working as a part-time publisher of Baptist and Temperance pamphlets, he became a Baptist minister in 1828.