Maltese Ambassador visits Minnesota, Iowa

The Republic of Malta is one of the newest members of the expanding European Union. Citizens of the Island nation are still getting used to their new currency: the Euro. They've only been using it since the first of the year.

Malta's population is about the same as Minneapolis. Those 400,000 people live on a chain of sun-drenched islands in the Mediterranean Sea.

Though the tiny nation is a long way from Minnesota, there is a surprising connection.

One of the best collections of historic Maltese documents is housed at St. Johns University in Collegeville, where the Hill Museum Manuscript Library is digitizing centuries worth of Malta's governmental and religious documents for future study.

Malta's Ambassador to the United States, Mark Miceli, is in the region to see some of that collection. He'll also speak to students at Luther College in Decorah, which has an active student exchange program with Malta.

Ambassador Miceli told Tom Crann that Malta's history and culture may be best known for the age of chivalry, but it goes back even further than that.