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Porto Santo Island
Porto Santo Island () is a Portuguese island northeast of Madeira Island in the North Atlantic Ocean; it is the northernmost and easternmost island of the archipelago of Madeira, located in the Atlantic Ocean west of Europe and Africa. The municipality of Porto Santo occupies the entire island and small neighboring islands. It was elevated to city status on 6 August 1996. The sole parish of the municipality is also named Porto Santo. The population in 2011 was 5,483, in an area of 42.59 km². The main settlement on the island is Vila Baleira. History It appears that some knowledge of Atlantic islands, such as Madeira, existed before the discovery and settlement of these lands, as the islands appear on maps as early as 1339. From a portolan dating to 1351, and preserved in Florence, Italy, it would appear that the islands of Madeira had been discovered long before being claimed by the Portuguese expedition of 1418. In ''Libro del Conocimiento'' (1348–1349), a Castilian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe and Asia from the "New World" of the Americas in the European perception of the World. The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and North and South America to the west. As one component of the interconnected World Ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Atlantic Ocean is divided in two parts, by the Equatorial Counter Current, with the North(ern) Atlantic Ocean and the South(ern) Atlantic Ocean split at about 8°N. Scientific explorations of the A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portolan
Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word ''portolan'' comes from the Italian ''portulano'', meaning "related to ports or harbors", and which since at least the 17th century designates "a collection of sailing directions". Definition The term “portolan chart” was coined in the 1890s because at the time it was assumed that these maps were related to portolani, medieval or early modern books of sailing directions. Other names that have been proposed include rhumb line charts, compass charts or loxodromic charts whereas modern French scholars prefer to call them nautical charts to avoid any relationship with portolani. Several definitions of portolan chart coexist in the literature. A narrow definition includes only medieval or, at the latest, early modern sea charts (i.e. maps that primarily cover maritime rather than inland regions) that include a network of rhumb li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xeric
Deserts and xeric shrublands are a biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Deserts and xeric (ancient Greek xērós, “dry") shrublands form the largest terrestrial biome, covering 19% of Earth's land surface area. Ecoregions in this habitat type vary greatly in the amount of annual rainfall they receive, usually less than annually except in the margins. Generally evaporation exceeds rainfall in these ecoregions. Temperature variability is also diverse in these lands. Many deserts, such as the Sahara, are hot year-round, but others, such as East Asia's Gobi, become quite cold in winter. Temperature extremes are a characteristic of most deserts. High daytime temperatures give way to cold nights because there is no insulation provided by humidity and cloud cover. The diversity of climatic conditions, though quite harsh, supports a rich array of habitats. Many of these habitats are ephemeral in nature, reflecting the paucity and seasonality of available water. Woody-stemm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit species and its descendants, the world's 305 breeds of domestic rabbit. ''Sylvilagus'' includes 13 wild rabbit species, among them the seven types of cottontail. The European rabbit, which has been introduced on every continent except Antarctica, is familiar throughout the world as a wild prey animal and as a domesticated form of livestock and pet. With its widespread effect on ecologies and cultures, the rabbit is, in many areas of the world, a part of daily life—as food, clothing, a companion, and a source of artistic inspiration. Although once considered rodents, lagomorphs like rabbits have been discovered to have diverged separately and earlier than their rodent cousins and have a number of traits rodents lack, like two extra incis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donatário
A ' (Portuguese for "donated" or "endowed ne), sometimes anglicized as donatary, was a private person — often a noble — who was granted a considerable piece of land (a ') by the Kingdom of Portugal. The king exempted these titleholders from normal colonial administration; the donatários were comparable to a royal governor or a British Lord Proprietor. As the ''donataria'' were often captaincies, the position is also translated as captain. History Normally, the ''donatário'' was the recipient of a captaincy, a territorial division and land grant, within Portuguese colonies. It was an effective administrative system that ceded certain rights and responsibilities to the ''donatário'', facilitating the settlement of unpopulated places with little cost to the Crown.Susana Goulart Costa (2008), p.231 The ''donatário'' was obligated to govern his territories under specific terms: in exchange for the grant, he received tax immunity, but was also responsible for promoting and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bartolomeu Perestrelo
Bartolomeu Perestrello (, in Italian ''Bartolomeo Perestrello''), 1st Capitão Donatário, Lord and Governor of the Island of Porto Santo ( 1395 – 1457) was a Portuguese navigator and explorer that is claimed to have discovered and populated Porto Santo Island (1419) together with João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira. The account of his participation in the discovery is disputed by some historians. Biography He was a son of ''Micer'' Filippo Pallastrelli (called Filipe Perestrello in Portugal), a Lombard knight who came to Portugal some say erroneously in the train of Queen Leonor of Aragon and here he was a Nobleman of John I of Portugal, who recognized his Coat of Arms and made him a Nobleman of Coat of Arms in 1433; he was married to Caterina Visconti (of the Visconti of Verona not from the ones of Milan), with whom he came to Portugal in 1385, and granted, in 1437, two houses at the Sub-Ripas Street in the City of Coimbra. He was the son of ''Mice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arkan Simaan
Arkan Simaan (born 1945) is a Lebanese-French novelist. He was born in Lebanon in 1945. When he was two years old, his family immigrated to Brazil and settled in the city of Anápolis near Brasilia. The 1964 Brazilian coup d'état overthrew the government of João Goulart just as Simaan had begun studying physics at the University of São Paulo. In response to this, he became a student activist. Sought by the political police and sentenced to jail in absentia, he went underground. His name was then cited in several prosecutions. Forced to flee Brazil, he arrived in Paris in 1970. After a few years in France, Simaan refrained from activities that were connected with his prior political involvement. In Paris he resumed his studies in physics at the University Paris Diderot. He then attended the Institut Supérieur des Matériaux et de la Construction Mécanique from which he received an engineering degree. Following a short spell in industry, he realized that he wanted to teach, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gomes Eanes De Zurara
Gomes Eanes de Zurara (c. 1410 – c. 1474), sometimes spelled Eannes or Azurara, was a Portuguese chronicler of the European Age of Discovery, the most notable after Fernão Lopes. Life and career Zurara adopted the career of letters in middle life. He probably entered the royal library as assistant to Fernão Lopes during the reign of King Edward of Portugal (1433–1438), and he had sole charge of it in 1452. His ''Chronicle of the Siege and Capture of Ceuta'', a supplement (third part) to Lopes's ''Chronicle of King John I'', dates from 1449–1450, and three years later he completed the first draft of the ''Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea'', our authority for the early Portuguese voyages of discovery down the African coast and in the ocean, more especially for those undertaken under the auspices of Prince Henry the Navigator. It contains some account of the life work of that prince, and it has biographical as well as geographical interest. On 6 June 1454 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volta Do Mar
, , or (the phrase in Portuguese means literally 'turn of the sea' but also 'return from the sea') is a navigational technique perfected by Portuguese navigators during the Age of Discovery in the late fifteenth century, using the dependable phenomenon of the great permanent wind circle, the North Atlantic Gyre. This was a major step in the history of navigation, when an understanding of winds in the age of sail was crucial to success: the European sea empires would not have been established without an understanding of the trade winds. History Portuguese discovery in the Atlantic Ocean The was a sailing technique discovered in successfully returning from the Atlantic islands, where the pilot first had to sail far to the west in order to catch usable following winds, and return to Europe. This was a counter-intuitive sailing direction, as it required the pilot to steer in a direction that was perpendicular to the ports of Portugal. Lack of this information may have doomed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John I Of Portugal
John I ( pt, João uˈɐ̃w̃ 11 April 1357 – 14 August 1433), also called John of Aviz, was King of Portugal from 1385 until his death in 1433. He is recognized chiefly for his role in Portugal's victory in a succession war with Castile, preserving his country's independence and establishing the Aviz (or Joanine) dynasty on the Portuguese throne. His long reign of 48 years, the most extensive of all Portuguese monarchs, saw the beginning of Portugal's overseas expansion. John's well-remembered reign in his country earned him the epithet of Fond Memory (''de Boa Memória''); he was also referred to as "the Good" (''o Bom''), sometimes "the Great" (''o Grande''), and more rarely, especially in Spain, as "the Bastard" (''Bastardo''). Early life John was born in Lisbon as the natural son of King Peter I of Portugal by a woman named Teresa, who, according to the royal chronicler Fernão Lopes in the Chronicle of the King D. Pedro I, was a noble Galician. In the 18th c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristão Vaz Teixeira
Tristão Vaz Teixeira (c. 1395–1480) was a Portuguese navigator and explorer who, together with João Gonçalves Zarco and Bartolomeu Perestrelo, was the official discoverer and one of the first settlers of the archipelago of Madeira (1419–1420). Biography He was born Tristão Vaz, adding the name Teixeira after his marriage with Branca Teixeira. Tristão was a nobleman of Prince Henry the Navigator's House, taking part in the conquest of Ceuta. Around 1418, while exploring the coast of Africa, he and João Gonçalves Zarco were taken off course by bad weather, and came upon an island which they called Porto Santo (Holy Harbor). Shortly after, they were ordered by Prince Henry to settle the island, together with Bartolomeu Perestrelo. Following a rabbit outbreak that made it difficult to grow crops, they moved to the nearby island of Madeira. It proved to be hospitable and cultivable, so Prince Henry sent for more settlers to colonize the island. The governance of Madeira w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
João Gonçalves Zarco
João Gonçalves Zarco ( 1390 – 21 November 1471) was a Portuguese explorer who established settlements and recognition of the Madeira Islands, and was appointed first captain of Funchal by Henry the Navigator. Life Zarco was born in Portugal, and became a knight at the service of Prince Henry the Navigator's household. In his service at an early age, Zarco commanded the caravels guarding the coast of the Algarve from Muslim incursions, was at the conquest of Ceuta, and later led the caravels that recognized the island of Porto Santo in 1418 to 1419 and afterward, the island of Madeira 1419 to 1420. He founded the city of Câmara de Lobos. He was granted, as hereditary leader (Capitania), half the island of Madeira (the Capitania of Funchal, being its first Captain-major). Together with his fellow fleet commanders, Tristão Vaz Teixeira and Bartolomeu Perestrelo, he initiated the colonization of the islands in 1425. As a knight of the House of Avis, he participated in the si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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