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João Faras
Mestre João Faras, better known simply as Mestre João ('Master John"), was an astrologer, astronomer, physician and surgeon of King Manuel I of Portugal who accompanied Pedro Álvares Cabral in the discovery of Brazil in 1500, and wrote a famous letter identifying the Southern Cross constellation. Background The celebrated 1500 letter of Mestre João Faras was discovered in the Portuguese royal archives by the historian Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, and published for the first time in 1843. Despite much search, the figure of Mestre João Faras remains elusive. In his 1500 letter, Mestre João identifies himself simply as a ''bacherel'' of arts and medicine ('bachelor' was a general term for someone with formal learning) and a personal physician and surgeon of the King Manuel I of Portugal. Besides the 1500 letter, the only other concrete clue we have of Mestre João's existence is an (unpublished) manuscript translation of Pomponius Mela's ''De Situ Orbis'' from Latin int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manuel I Of Portugal
Manuel I (; 31 May 146913 December 1521), known as the Fortunate ( pt, O Venturoso), was King of Portugal from 1495 to 1521. A member of the House of Aviz, Manuel was Duke of Beja and Viseu prior to succeeding his cousin, John II of Portugal, as monarch. Manuel ruled over a period of intensive expansion of the Portuguese Empire owing to the numerous Portuguese discoveries made during his reign. His sponsorship of Vasco da Gama led to the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India in 1498, resulting in the creation of the Portuguese India Armadas, which guaranteed Portugal's monopoly on the spice trade. Manuel began the Portuguese colonization of the Americas and Portuguese India, and oversaw the establishment of a vast trade empire across Africa and Asia. He was also the first monarch to bear the title: ''By the Grace of God, King of Portugal and the Algarves, this side and beyond the Sea in Africa, Lord of Guinea and the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce in Ethiopia, A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2nd Portuguese India Armada (Cabral, 1500)
The Second Portuguese India Armada was assembled in 1500 on the order of King Manuel I of Portugal and placed under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral. Cabral's armada famously discovered Brazil for the Portuguese crown along the way. By and large, the Second Armada's diplomatic mission to India failed, and provoked the opening of hostilities between the Kingdom of Portugal and the feudal city-state of Calicut. Nonetheless, it managed to establish a factory in the nearby Kingdom of Cochin, the first Portuguese factory in Asia. Fleet The first India Armada, commanded by Vasco da Gama, arrived in Portugal in the summer of 1499, in rather sorry shape. Half of his ships and men had been lost thanks to battles, disease, and storms. Although Gama came back with a hefty cargo of spices that would be sold at enormous profit, he had failed in the principal objective of his mission: to negotiate a treaty with Calicut, the spice entrepôt on the Malabar Coast of India. Gama managed, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
True North
True north (also called geodetic north or geographic north) is the direction along Earth's surface towards the geographic North Pole or True North Pole. Geodetic north differs from ''magnetic'' north (the direction a compass points toward the Magnetic North Pole), and from grid north (the direction northwards along the grid lines of a map projection). Geodetic true north also differs very slightly from ''astronomical'' true north (typically by a few arcseconds) because the local gravitational field may not point at the exact rotational axis of Earth. The direction of astronomical true north is marked in the skies by the north celestial pole. This is within about 1° of the position of Polaris, meaning the star would appear to trace a tiny circle in the sky each sidereal day. Due to the axial precession of Earth, true north rotates in an arc with respect to the stars that takes approximately 25,000 years to complete. Around 2101–2103, Polaris will make its closest approac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnetic North
The north magnetic pole, also known as the magnetic north pole, is a point on the surface of Earth's Northern Hemisphere at which the planet's magnetic field points vertically downward (in other words, if a magnetic compass needle is allowed to rotate in three dimensions, it will point straight down). There is only one location where this occurs, near (but distinct from) the geographic north pole. The geomagnetic north pole is the northern antipodal pole of an ideal dipole model of the Earth's magnetic field, which is the most closely fitting model of Earth's actual magnetic field. The north magnetic pole moves over time according to magnetic changes and flux lobe elongation in the Earth's outer core. In 2001, it was determined by the Geological Survey of Canada to lie west of Ellesmere Island in northern Canada at . It was situated at in 2005. In 2009, while still situated within the Canadian Arctic at , it was moving toward Russia at between per year. As of 2021, the po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry The Navigator
''Dom'' Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator ( pt, Infante Dom Henrique, o Navegador), was a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15th-century European maritime discoveries and maritime expansion. Through his administrative direction, he is regarded as the main initiator of what would be known as the Age of Discovery. Henry was the fourth child of the Portuguese King John I, who founded the House of Aviz. After procuring the new caravel ship, Henry was responsible for the early development of Portuguese exploration and maritime trade with other continents through the systematic exploration of Western Africa, the islands of the Atlantic Ocean, and the search for new routes. He encouraged his father to conquer Ceuta (1415), the Muslim port on the North African coast across the Straits of Gibraltar from the Iberian Peninsula. He learned of the opportunities offered by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Zacuto
Abraham Zacuto ( he, , translit=Avraham ben Shmuel Zacut, pt, Abraão ben Samuel Zacuto; 12 August 1452 – ) was a Castilian astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, rabbi and historian who served as Royal Astronomer to King John II of Portugal. His astrolabe of copper, his astronomical tables and maritime charts played an important role in the Spanish and Portuguese navigation capability. They were used by Vasco Da Gama and Christopher Columbus. The crater Zagut on the Moon is named after him. Life Zacuto was born in Salamanca, Castile in 1452. He may have studied and taught astronomy at the University of Salamanca. He later taught astronomy at the universities of Zaragoza and then Carthage. He was well versed in Jewish Law, and was the rabbi of his community. With the Catholic Monarchs of Spain issuing the 1492 Alhambra Decree ordering the expulsion of the Jews, Zacuto took refuge in Lisbon, Portugal. Already famous in academic circles, he was invited to court and nom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cross-staff
The term Jacob's staff is used to refer to several things, also known as cross-staff, a ballastella, a fore-staff, a ballestilla, or a balestilha. In its most basic form, a Jacob's staff is a stick or pole with length markings; most staffs are much more complicated than that, and usually contain a number of measurement and stabilization features. The two most frequent uses are: * in astronomy and navigation for a simple device to measure angles, later replaced by the more precise sextants; * in surveying (and scientific fields that use surveying techniques, such as geology and ecology) for a vertical rod that penetrates or sits on the ground and supports a compass or other instrument. The simplest use of a Jacob's staff is to make qualitative judgements of the height and angle of an object relative to the user of the staff. In astronomy and navigation In navigation the instrument is also called a cross-staff and was used to determine angles, for instance the angle between the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrolabe
An astrolabe ( grc, ἀστρολάβος ; ar, ٱلأَسْطُرلاب ; persian, ستارهیاب ) is an ancient astronomical instrument that was a handheld model of the universe. Its various functions also make it an elaborate inclinometer and an analog calculation device capable of working out several kinds of problems in astronomy. In its simplest form it is a metal disc with a pattern of wires, cutouts, and perforations that allows a user to calculate astronomical positions precisely. Historically used by astronomers, it is able to measure the altitude above the horizon of a celestial body, day or night; it can be used to identify stars or planets, to determine local latitude given local time (and vice versa), to survey, or to triangulate. It was used in classical antiquity, the Islamic Golden Age, the European Middle Ages and the Age of Discovery for all these purposes. The astrolabe's importance comes not only from the early developments into the study of astron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guinea (region)
Guinea is a traditional name for the region of the African coast of West Africa which lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It is a naturally moist tropical forest or savanna that stretches along the coast and borders the Sahel belt in the north. Etymology The etymology of "Guinea" is uncertain. The English term ''Guinea'' comes directly from the Spanish word ''Guinea'', which in turn derives from the Portuguese word ''Guiné''. The Portuguese term emerged in the mid-15th century to refer to the lands inhabited by the ''Guineus'', a generic term used by the Portuguese to refer to the 'black' African peoples living south of the Senegal River (in contrast to the 'tawny' Sanhaja Berbers, north of it, whom they called ''Azenegues''). The term "Guinea" is extensively used in the 1453 chronicle of Gomes Eanes de Zurara. King John II of Portugal took up the title of ''Senhor da Guiné'' (Lord of Guinea) from 1481. It is believed the Portuguese borrowed ''Guineus'' from the Berber term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
José Vizinho
José Vizinho, (also known in English as ''Joseph Vecinho''), was a Portuguese Jew, born in the town of Covilhã, court physician and scientist at the end of the fifteenth century. He was a pupil of Abraham Zacuto, with whom he studied mathematics and cosmography, and was regarded as an authority on the subject by King John II of Portugal. He was sent by the king to the Gulf of Guinea in 1483, to measure the altitude of the sun, using an astrolabe improved by Jacob ben Machir. This was one of several voyages that resulted in the production of detailed maps of areas of the eastern Atlantic that had been unknown to Europeans until then. In 1484, Christopher Columbus presented his plans to the king for a western route to the Indies, which was evaluated by a committee of experts headed by Martin Behaim and "Mestre José", as José Vizinho was called, and also including the Bishop of Ceuta, the court physician Rodrigo, and a Jewish mathematician named Moisés. The Committee finally dec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuno Leitão Da Cunha '', a nature spirit (''anito'') of anthills with the appearance of an old man in Philippine folklore
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Nuno can refer to *Nuno (given name) :*Nuno Espirito Santo, football manager :*Nuno Tavares, football player *Nuño (given name) *Nuno felting, a fabric felting technique *'' Nuno'', meaning "ancestor" in Philippine languages, usually in reference to ancestral ''anito'' spirits :*''Nuno sa punso A nuno sa punso ("old man of the mound"), or simply nuno ("old man" or "grandparent" "ancestor"), is a dwarf-like nature spirit ('' anito'') in Philippine mythology. It is believed to live in an anthill or termite mound, hence its name, literal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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