Conception Island National Park
The Conception Island National Park is a protected area in the Bahamas. The island lies between Cat Island to the north and Rum Cay to the south. The vegetation consists of mangrove communities, with typical strand vegetation, and the island is visited by green turtles, sea birds and migrating birds. The park The park has a land area of and a maximum altitude of . It is administered by the Bahamas National Trust. Washington Irving identified Conception Island as the site of one of Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...' landfalls during his 1492 voyage, but this early theory was not supported by other historians and writers (either at the time or subsequently), who identified different claimant islands as the site of Columbus's landfall. Wilcomb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conception Island, Bahamas
Conception Island is an islet located in the Bahamas. It is and reaches above sea level. It is an important rookery for nesting seabirds and hatching site for green turtles. It is uninhabited and protected as part of the Conception Island National Park. In 2015, a species of boa called the Conception Bank silver boa (''Chilabothrus argentum'') was found to occur here; the new species is endemic to Conception as well as its satellite islets. See also * Geography of the Bahamas The Bahamas are a group of about 700 islands and cays in the western Atlantic Ocean, of which only between 30 and 40 are inhabited. The largest of the islands is Andros Island, located north of Cuba and southeast of Florida. The Bimini islands ... References External links Conception Island Uninhabited islands of the Bahamas {{bahamas-geo-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the archipelago's population. The archipelagic state consists of more than 3,000 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located north of Cuba and northwest of the island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida, and east of the Florida Keys. The capital is Nassau, Bahamas, Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes The Bahamas' territory as encompassing of ocean space. The Bahama Islands were inhabited by the Lucayan people, Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-Taino language, speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making hi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bahamas National Trust
The Bahamas National Trust is a non-profit organisation in the Bahamas that manages the country's 32 national parks.. Its headquarters is located in New Providence in the Bay Street Business Centre, East Bay Street. Its office was formally located at The Retreat Gardens on Village Road. The Bahamas National Trust was created by an Act of Parliament in 1959, through the efforts of two groups of conservationists. History Flamingos In the early 20th century there was concern for the survival of the Caribbean flamingo. The National Audubon Society of the United States urged the Bahamas government to protect the flamingos, which led to passage of the Wildbirds (Protection) Act in 1905. In the early 1950s, Audubon expert Robert Porter Allen scoured the Caribbean searching for flamingos. In his popular book, ''On the Trail of Vanishing Birds'', Allen found that the colonies on the island of Andros in the Bahamas had already disappeared. He determined that the largest surviving group ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cat Island, Bahamas
Cat Island is located in central Bahamas, and is one of its districts. Cat Island also has the nation's highest point, Mount Alvernia (formerly known as Como Hill). It rises to and is topped by a monastery called ''The Hermitage''. This assembly of buildings was erected by the Franciscan "Brother Jerome" (John Hawes). History The first white settlers were Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, who arrived in 1783. The island may have been named after Arthur Catt, a pirate, or the name may refer to its one-time large population of feral cats. Historically, the island gained wealth from cotton plantations, but slash and burn farming is now the main way of life for Cat Islanders. An economic crop is '' Croton eluteria'' (called also cascarilla) bark, which is gathered and shipped to Italy where it becomes a main ingredient in medicines, scents and Campari. Until written accounts were found, Cat Island was thought to be Guanahani or San Salvador, the first island Christoph ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rum Cay
Rum Cay (formerly known as Mamana and Santa Maria de la Concepción) is an island and district of the Bahamas. It measures in area, it is located at Lat.: N23 42' 30" - Long.: W 74 50' 00". It has many rolling hills that rise to about 120 feet (37 m). The island is believed to have acquired its modern name from a shipwrecked cargo of rum. The main settlement is Port Nelson. Its population was recorded as 99 and as 30 . Before 1996 the island was part of a combined district of San Salvador and Rum Cay. The population of Rum Cay as of 2015 is 53. Location Rum Cay is 20 miles (32 km) southwest of San Salvador Island. History Aboriginals Rum Cay was called Mamana by the native Lucayans. In the north there is a cave containing Lucayan drawings and carvings. Various artifacts from the Arawak period have been found by farmers in the fertile soil, which the natives enriched with bat guano. Spanish Some writers, such as Samuel Eliot Morison, identified Rum Cay as the site of o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mangrove
A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in several plant families. They occur worldwide in the tropics and subtropics and even some temperate coastal areas, mainly between latitudes 30° N and 30° S, with the greatest mangrove area within 5° of the equator. Mangrove plant families first appeared during the Late Cretaceous to Paleocene epochs, and became widely distributed in part due to the plate tectonics, movement of tectonic plates. The oldest known fossils of Nypa fruticans, mangrove palm date to 75 million years ago. Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees, also called halophytes, and are adapted to live in harsh coastal conditions. They contain a complex salt filtration system and a complex root system to cope with saltwater immersion and wave action. They are ad ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Washington Irving
Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He is best known for his short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1820), both of which appear in his collection ''The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.'' His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain that deal with subjects such as Alhambra, Christopher Columbus and the Moors. Irving served as American ambassador to Spain in the 1840s. Born and raised in Manhattan to a merchant family, Irving made his literary debut in 1802 with a series of observational letters to the ''Morning Chronicle'', written under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. He temporarily moved to England for the family business in 1815 where he achieved fame with the publication of ''The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Cr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, opening the way for the widespread European Age of Discovery, exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. The name ''Christopher Columbus'' is the anglicisation of the Latin . Scholars generally agree that Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa and spoke a dialect of Ligurian (Romance language), Ligurian as his first language. He went to sea at a young age and travelled widely, as far north as the British Isles and as far south as what is now Ghana. He married Port ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Voyages Of Christopher Columbus
Between 1492 and 1504, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus led four Spanish transatlantic maritime expeditions of discovery to the Americas. These voyages led to the widespread knowledge of the New World. This breakthrough inaugurated the period known as the Age of Discovery, which saw the colonization of the Americas, a related biological exchange, and trans-Atlantic trade. These events, the effects and consequences of which persist to the present, are often cited as the beginning of the modern era. Born in the Republic of Genoa, Columbus was a navigator who sailed for the Crown of Castile (a predecessor to the modern Kingdom of Spain) in search of a westward route to the Indies, thought to be the East Asian source of spices and other precious oriental goods obtainable only through arduous overland routes. Columbus was partly inspired by 13th-century Italian explorer Marco Polo in his ambition to explore Asia and never admitted his failure in this, incessantly claiming an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Silvio Bedini
Silvio A. Bedini (January 17, 1917 – November 14, 2007) was an American historian, specialising in early scientific instruments. He was Historian Emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution, where he served on the professional staff for twenty-five years, retiring in 1987. Biography Bedini was born in Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1917. In 1958 he accepted an invitation to write a brochure about the history of his hometown for its 250th anniversary, a project that just three months later resulted in a 411-page book titled ''Ridgefield in Review''. In 1961 he accepted the offer of a position in Washington, D.C. as curator in the Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering at the Smithsonian Institution in the new Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History), which was under construction. By 1965, Bedini became Assistant Director of the Museum of History and Technology, and in 1972 was appointed Deputy Director of the National Museum of History and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Green Sea Turtle
The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range extends throughout tropical and subtropical seas around the world, with two distinct populations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but it is also found in the Indian Ocean. The common name refers to the usually green fat found beneath its carapace, not to the color of its carapace, which is olive to black. The dorsoventrally flattened body of ''C. mydas'' is covered by a large, teardrop-shaped carapace; it has a pair of large, paddle-like flippers. It is usually lightly colored, although in the eastern Pacific populations, parts of the carapace can be almost black. Unlike other members of its family, such as the hawksbill sea turtle, ''C. mydas'' is mostly herbivorous. The adults usually inhabit shallow lagoons, feeding mostly on various ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |