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History Of Belize (1506–1862)
Belize, on the east coast of Central America, southeast of Mexico, was inhabited by the indigenous peoples who fought off the Spaniards in an attempt to preserve their heritage and to avoid the fate of their neighbors who were conquered and under Spanish rule. While this was going on, British pirates would rob Spanish merchant ships and navigate through the shallow waters and small islands even going up river later to hide their bounty. The indigenous people of Belize did not resist the British like they did the Spanish. In the 17th century, however, the British settlement became a formal British crown colony from 1862 through 1964, where they first achieved self government and later in 1981 became an independent country recognized globally with all its territory intact. The British brought along with them slaves taken from Congo and Angola during the eighteenth century. Pre-Columbian societies and the conquest Maya were still in Belize when the Europeans came in the 16th and 17th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980, making smallpox the only human disease to have been eradicated to date. The initial symptoms of the disease included fever and vomiting. This was followed by formation of ulcers in the mouth and a skin rash. Over a number of days, the skin rash turned into the characteristic fluid-filled blisters with a dent in the center. The bumps then scabbed over and fell off, leaving scars. The disease was transmitted from one person to another primarily through prolonged face-to-face contact with an infected person or rarely via contaminated objects. Prevention was achieved mainly through the smallpox vaccine. Once the disease had developed, certain antiviral medications could poten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guatemalan Highlands
The Guatemalan Highlands is an upland region in southern Guatemala which lies between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas to the south and the Petén lowlands to the north. Geographic description The Highlands lie between 6360 ft and 13780 ft and are made up of a series of high valleys enclosed by mountains. There are volcanoes which are both active and extinct. The local name for the region is ''Altos,'' meaning "highlands." The relief of the mountainous country which is north of the Highlands and drains into the Atlantic is varied by terraces, ridges, and underfalls. Its general configuration is compared by E. Reclus to the appearance of "a stormy sea breaking into parallel billows".''Universal Geography'', ed. E. G. Ravenstein, div. xxxiii., p. 212 A range called the Sierra de Chamá travels eastward towards Belize and is connected by low hills with the Cockscomb Mountains. The Sierra de Santa Cruz, a similar range, continues east to Cape Cocoli between the Polochic and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Conquest Of Yucatán
The Spanish conquest of Yucatán was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish Empire, Spanish ''conquistadores'' against the Mesoamerican chronology, Late Postclassic Maya civilization, Maya states and polities in the Yucatán Peninsula, a vast limestone plain covering south-eastern Mexico, northern Guatemala, and all of Belize. The Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish conquest of the Yucatán Peninsula was hindered by its politically fragmented state. The Spanish engaged in a strategy of concentrating native populations in newly founded colonial towns. Native resistance to the new nucleated settlements took the form of the flight into inaccessible regions such as the forest or joining neighbouring Maya peoples, Maya groups that had not yet submitted to the Spanish. Among the Maya, ambush was a favoured tactic. Spanish weaponry included broadswords, rapiers, lances, pike (weapon), pikes, halberds, crossbows, matchlocks, and light History of artillery, artillery. Maya war ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panama City
Panama City, also known as Panama, is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has a total population of 1,086,990, with over 2,100,000 in its metropolitan area. The city is located at the Pacific Ocean, Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, in the Panamá Province, province of Panama. The city is the political and administrative center of the country, as well as a hub for banking and commerce. The city of Panama was founded on 15 August 1519, by Spanish conquistador Pedro Arias Dávila. The city was the starting point for expeditions that conquered the Inca Empire of Peru. It was a stopover point on one of the most important trade routes in the American continent, leading to the fairs of Nombre de Dios, Colón, Nombre de Dios and Portobelo, Colón, Portobelo, through which passed most of the gold and silver that Spain mined from the Americas. On 28 January 1671, Panamá Viejo, the original city was destroyed by a fire when the privateer Henry Morgan sacked and set fire to it. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pedro Arias Dávila
Pedro Arias de Ávila (c. 1440 – 6 March 1531; often Pedro Arias Dávila or Pedrarias Dávila) was a Spanish soldier and colonial administrator. He led the first great Spanish expedition to the mainland of the Americas. There, he served as governor of Panama (1514–1526) and Nicaragua (1527–1531), and founded Panama City (1519).Sherman (2008) He died in 1531 aged around 90 or 91. Family Pedrarias was the son of Pedro Arias and María Ortiz de Cota. He was born into a prominent and well-connected Spanish family. His grandfather, Diego Arias de Ávila, was chief comptroller and a key adviser to King Enrique IV; his older brother was the Count of Puñonrostro; and his uncle was the Bishop of Segovia, a wealthy man who left Pedrarias a fortune.Romoli (1953) Early life As a boy, he was a '' page'' in the court of King Juan II of Castile. Physically imposing and athletic, he was nicknamed "the jouster" for his skill in tournaments and "the gallant" in reference to his extrava ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (December 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Born in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue adventure and riches in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an ''encomienda'' (the right to the labor of certain subjects). For a short time, he served as ''alcalde'' (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, which he partly funded. His enmity with the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cué ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yucatán (state)
Yucatán, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, constitute the 32 Political divisions of Mexico, federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 106 separate Municipalities of Yucatán, municipalities, and its capital city is Mérida, Yucatán, Mérida. Located on the northern part of the Yucatán Peninsula, it is bordered by the states of Campeche to the southwest and Quintana Roo to the southeast, with the Gulf of Mexico off its northern coast. Before the arrival of Conquistador, Spaniards, the peninsula was a very important region for the Maya civilization that reached the peak of its development here, where the Maya founded the cities of Chichen Itza, Izamal, Motul, Yucatán, Motul, Mayapan, Ek' Balam, and Ichkanzihóo (also called T'ho), now Mérida. After the Spanish conquest of Yucatán (early 16th to late 17th centuries), the Yucatán Peninsula became a single administrative and political entity, the Capt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juan Díaz De Solís
Juan Díaz de Solís ( – 20 January 1516) was a 16th-century navigator and explorer. He is also said to be the first European to land on what is now modern day Uruguay. Biography His origins are disputed. One document records him as a Portuguese in the service of Castile ("Spain"), having possibly been born in Lisbon or São Pedro de Solis. Others claim that his birth took place in Lebrija, in what is now the province of Seville, Spain, where documentation testifies that he lived when he was in Castile, as ''vecino'' ("neighbor"), meaning living there. However he began his naval career in Portugal as João Dias de Solis, where he became a pilot in the Portuguese India Armadas. After leaving his home in Lisbon and the ship that he was going to sail as Pilot, in the same day of departure of the fleet (ship captained by Afonso de Albuquerque, in the 1506 armada of Tristão da Cunha, to India), accused of the death of his wife, he served as a privateer in French fleets for a sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinzón–Solís Voyage
The Pinzón–Solís voyage was a Spanish maritime expedition in 1508–1509 to the Bay of Honduras, and possibly to adjacent bodies of water, led by Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and Juan Díaz de Solís. It is thought to have been the earliest European reconnaissance of coasts in the western portion of the aforementioned Bay, and thus of the Caribbean shores of Belize, Guatemala, western Honduras, and possibly southern Quintana Roo, Mexico. Prelude Since the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain had expected but not received word of a western passage to '' la Especiería''. As the years wore on, the lack of progress became so glaringly obvious that on 13 March 1505 and again on 23 August 1506, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and Amerigo Vespucci were especially commissioned to redeem the frustrated record by discovery of such a passage. For some reason or another, however, these commissions could not be promptly fulfilled. Consequently, in March 1508, F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds the exclusive rights, anyone can legally use or reference those works without permission. As examples, the works of William Shakespeare, Ludwig van Beethoven, Miguel de Cervantes, Zoroaster, Lao Zi, Confucius, Aristotle, L. Frank Baum, Leonardo da Vinci and Georges Méliès are in the public domain either by virtue of their having been created before copyright existed, or by their copyright term having expired. Some works are not covered by a country's copyright laws, and are therefore in the public domain; for example, in the United States, items excluded from copyright include the formulae of Classical mechanics, Newtonian physics and cooking recipes. Other works are actively dedicated by their authors to the public domain (see waiver) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
