The Azores is located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in between North America and Europe. Azores is a region not a country. The main language is Portuguese. The archipelago is 760 miles from Lisbon and 2,110 miles from New York.
The Azores is made up of nine beautiful and fascinating islands, Corvo, Flores, Faial, Graciosa, Pico, Sao Jorge, Sao Miguel, Santa Maria, and Terceira. A group of islands like this is also called an archipelago. They are divided into three groups. The Eastern group is made up of Santa Maria and Sao Miguel. The central group is made up of Terceira, Graciosa, Sao Jorge, Pico, and Faial. The western group is made up of Flores and Corvo.
The capital of these islands are: Corvo, Vila Nova do Corvo, Flores, Lages, Faial, Horta, Graciosa, Santa Cruz, Pico, Lagis, Sao Jorge, Vila das Velas, Sao Miguel, Ponta Delgada, Santa Maria, Vila do Porto, and Terceira, Angra do Heroismo.
All the islands have there own little story on which they tell their history and important facts and this all makes up the history of the Azores.
First I will start with the island of Sao Miguel: which is also known as the Green island because color given by the Forests. Sao Miguel is the most populated of the nine islands, and has an area of 297 square miles and a population of 250,000. The discovery of this island took place sometime between 1426 and 1439.
Santa Maria: The island of Santa Maria has an area of 42 square miles. It is the southernmost island in the archipelago and its major settlement is Vila do Porto its capital.
Its exact date of discovery is still a matter of discussion today. It is believed that it was discovered between 1427 and 1432. The settlement of the island took place during the course of the 15th century. Santa Maria is exceptional for the way its white painted cottages with their unusual chimneys are scattered over the landscape.
Terceira: The island of Terceira has an area of 250 square miles. Its called Terceira because it was the 3rd island to be discovered. About 1450 a Fleming, Jacome de Bruges, began to colonize the island.
Owing to its privileged location, the island was then the port of call for Portuguese ships sailing the Atlantic. Angra was the 1st settlement to be razed to the status of township (1534).
environment of jungle-like, tropical archipelago of approximately 1,700 isles with miles and miles of pristine beaches, it's a casual playground but with
The Aztec Empire was the most powerful Mesoamerican kingdom of all time. They dominated the valley of Mexico in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Aztecs were an advanced and successful civilization that built beautiful, sophisticated cities, temples, and pyramids. They also created a culture full of creativity with mythological and religious traditions. Aztecs lead a structured and evocative life that let their society to become a very superior civilization. The Aztec’s communication skills were very well developed for their time; through religious beliefs, government involvement, and family life they lived a full and productive life. Until in 1519 when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico, and defeated the Aztecs.
“Thunder on their ships” can be used to describe Herman Cortes when he landed at what is now Veracruz, Mexico in 1519 A.D. The light skinned and bearded Spaniard led his men into territory occupied by the Aztec civilization. Little did Cortes know, but that happened to be the same year in the Aztec culture when a white and bearded deity was expected to arrive. Montezuma, the Aztec’s ruler, greeted Cortes with honors fit for a God and opened up his empire for Spanish invasion. Cortes and his followers, equipped with the most up to date technology of the time, successfully caused the demise of the Aztec civilization. However, the most contemporary weaponry and technology did not solely destroy the Aztecs. Smallpox, a deadly disease introduced to the Americas by Spanish soldiers, infected the non-immune natives who died rapidly after exposure (Ehrlich, 253). This epidemic swept through the Aztec population, decreasing numbers from twenty-five million to six million (Ponting, 230). The European invasion of the Aztec civilization is just one of many examples of how European expansion affected the world. For centuries, Europeans were the leaders of expansion and exploration to many areas of the world. However, expansion of other, less researched civilizations, such as the Aztecs, occurred on a much smaller scale. The differences between the movement of the Aztec people and the Europeans as well as their effects on the environment are directly correlated to cultural and technological factors of both...
Published in 1493, Luis Santangel received the embellished journal of Christopher Columbus as validation for the much-promised riches in the Indies. Centered around an era of power and conquest, Columbus tapered his writings and findings to pacify his Royal sponsors for the voyage. Santangel was also one such wealthy sponsor. Although the tone of the letter was vastly hyperbolic, Christopher Columbus still managed to document the labeling of the numerous islands and its topography. Yet even the size and measurement is a bit exaggerated as well referring to one island being twice as large as that of Great Britain and Scotland. Columbus did his best to acknowledge various “thousands upon thousands” in this letter with that of spiceries and gold mines with mountains in a “thousand shapes...full of trees of a thousand kinds” as well as deeming the exotic islands incomparable to any other islands that “there could be no believing without seeing” firsthand. Colu...
island is tropical and shaped like a boat. At the low end are the jungle and the
Many people probably picture in their minds Columbus arriving to a sparsely populated wilderness, when in actuality, what he “discovered” was a prosperous land with established native cultures and complex social systems. According to the majority of historians and archaeologists, there were as many as 100 million people living in America when Columbus arrived in 1492. The Aztec Empire was one of the largest empires, with a population of around 5-10 million. The Aztec Empire is considered one of the “great civilizations” because of its complexity and achievements. Prior to the arrival and influence of the Europeans, the Aztecs had established a remarkable and advanced way of life in comparison with other native tribes and nomads. The Aztecs had many important pre-Columbian accomplishments and achievements in areas, such as math, science, language, architecture, and agricultural engineering.
Between 1680 and 1683, Portuguese colonists in Brazil established several settlements along the Río de la Plata opposite Buenos Aires. However, the Spanish didn't make any attempts to remove the Portuguese until the year of 1723, when the latter began fortifying the heights around the Bay of Montevideo. A Spanish expedition forced the Portuguese to abandon this site, and there the Spanish founded the city of Montevideo in 1726.
The Galapagos Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean with a chain that stretches as far as 220 kilometers from the most northern to the most southern island. This archipelago of volcanic islands is positioned in a way where some islands are found north of the Equator and others are found south of the Equator. There is even one island, Volcan Wolf, which is positioned directly on the equatorial line. The Galapagos has absolutely no indigenous population, and those 25,000 citizens that do live there now speak primarily Spanish. There are a total of 18 main islands, 3 small islands, and 107 islets (very small islands).
Initially it was Spanish territory, but the French and English also assumed control of the island at various points in history. Pirates and privateers used the island as a safe refuge to restock their supply of fresh water and supplies(Hartog, 55).
He describes the harbors on the islands as “beyond comparison” and the mountains are “beyond comparison with the island of Tenerife,” one of the largest of the Canary Islands (36). By comparing the islands with other locations known for their resources and beauty, Columbus is able to paint a picture of lands that are even more magnificent and worth colonizing. The picture Columbus is painting is of five islands with unlimited resources, vantage points, a harbor that can be a grand trading hub while all being surrounded by the beauty of God’s nature. His description makes it very difficult to pass up such an
The island was first discovered by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1494 and became a colony of Spain in 1509. They founded the town now known as Spanish Town and it was the capital of the island until the 1800s. Under the Spanish, the native Arawak Indians died out because of slavery and disease, and Africans were brought in to work in their place. The Spanish ruled the country until 1655 when Sir William Penn of the British captured the colony by force. It was later tuned over legally under the Treaty of Madrid in 1670(Jamaica).
The Caymans were “discovered” by the west by Christopher Columbus on his fourth and final voyage to the new world. His two ships, the Capitana and the Santiago sighted two small islands on May 10, 1503. These islands he called “Las Tortugas” because of their abundance of sea turtles, these islands eventually became Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Columbus’ ships were off course when they sighted the islands and did not set foot on the islands. Columbus was an unintentional witness to the yearly gathering of sea turtles to mate and lay eggs. They were so abundant that their shells were mistaken for large rocks on the beaches. The turtles yearly migration was a large influence on the islands early history.
Discovered in 1492 by Christopher Columbus the West Indies were given this name through his mistaken belief that he had reached the Indies, and he himself wrote of them as Las Yndias Ocidentales, referred to as the accidental Indies. After the mistake was realized they were later called them West Indies to distinguish them from the East Indies and at the time in the sixteenth century they were known as the Little Indies, while the East Indies were called the Great Indies. The native inhabitants of the West Indies and America were called Indians as a result of the same error. To distinguish them from the inhabitants of India they were to be called Amerindians or Red Indians. The islands are divided into three major groups: the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the Lesser Antilles. The Greater Antilles consist of Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, and all the rest, except the Bahamas, are included in the group of Lesser Antilles, and were also called the Caribee Islands.
It has three major island groups which are the Luzon, the largest island and where the capital is located; Visayan, and Mindanao. Eleven islands make up 94 percent of the Philippine landmass, and two of these--Luzon and Mindanao--measure 105,000 and 95,000 square kilometers, respectively. They, together with the cluster of the Visayan Islands that separate them, represent the three principal regions of the archipelago (many scattered islands in a large body of water) that are identified by the three stars on the Philippine flag.