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Samana Cay
Samana Cay is a now uninhabited island in the Bahamas believed by some researchers to have been the location of Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the Americas on October 12, 1492. It is an islet in the eastern Bahamas, northeast of Acklins Island. About long and up to wide with an area of about it is bound by reefs. The verdant cay has long been uninhabited, but figurines, pottery shards, and other artifacts discovered there in the mid-1980s have been ascribed to Lucayan Indians, who lived on the cay around the time of Columbus's voyages. The indigenous people of the island on which Columbus first landed called it "Guanahani." Samana Cay was first proposed to be Guanahani by Gustavus Fox in 1882, but the predominant theory gives the honour to San Salvador Island. However, in 1986, Joseph Judge of ''National Geographic Magazine'' made different calculations based on extracts from Columbus's logs and argued for Samana Cay as the location, but his methodology has also be ... [...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 The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ..." of the Americas in the European perception of Earth, the World. The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and North America, 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucayan Archipelago
The Lucayan Archipelago (named for the original native Lucayan people), also known as the Bahama Archipelago, is an island group comprising the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and the British Overseas Territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The archipelago is in the western North Atlantic Ocean, north of Cuba and the other Antilles, and east and southeast of Florida. William Keegan writes: "Modern political considerations aside, the islands form a single archipelago with common geological, ecological, and cultural roots." Though part of the West Indies, the Lucayan Archipelago is not located on the Caribbean Sea. Proposed federation In 2010, the leaders of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands discussed the possibility of forming a federation. Countries and territories * The Bahamas * Turks and Caicos Islands (United Kingdom) The Mouchoir Bank, the Silver Bank, and the Navidad Bank are a submerged continuation of the archipelago, to the southeast of the Turks and C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the 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 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 Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan- speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the "New World" in 1492 when h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Time Zone
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small portion of westernmost Brazil in South America, along with certain Caribbean and Atlantic islands. Places that use: * Eastern Standard Time (EST), when observing standard time (autumn/winter), are five hours behind Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−05:00). * Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), when observing daylight saving time (spring/summer), are four hours behind Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−04:00). On the second Sunday in March, at 2:00 a.m. EST, clocks are advanced to 3:00 a.m. EDT leaving a one-hour "gap". On the first Sunday in November, at 2:00 a.m. EDT, clocks are moved back to 1:00 a.m. EST, thus "duplicating" one hour. Southern parts of the zone (Panama and the Caribbean) do not observe daylight saving ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, opening the way for the widespread European 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 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 Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who bore his son Diego, and was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acklins Island
Acklins is an island and district of the Bahamas. It is one of a group of islands arranged along a large, shallow lagoon called the Bight of Acklins, of which the largest are Crooked Island () in the north and Acklins () in the southeast, and the smaller are Long Cay (once known as Fortune Island, ()) in the northwest, and Castle Island in the south. History The islands were settled by American Loyalists in the late 1780s who set up cotton plantations maintained by over 1,000 slaves. After the abolition of slavery in the British Empire the plantations became uneconomical, and the replacement income from sponge diving has now dwindled as well with the rest of the natural sponge industry after the advent of synthetics. The inhabitants now live by fishing and small-scale farming. Although Acklins Island has relatively few historical landmarks, there are some noteworthy places. Acklins is home to numerous Lucayan people sites. An ancient site, thought to be one of the largest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucayan People
The Lucayan people ( ) were the original residents of the Bahamas before the European conquest of the Americas. They were a branch of the Taínos who inhabited most of the Caribbean islands at the time. The Lucayans were the first indigenous Americans encountered by Christopher Columbus. Shortly after contact, the Spanish kidnapped and enslaved Lucayans, with the genocide culminating in complete eradication of Lucayan people from the Bahamas by 1520. The name "Lucayan" is an Anglicization of the Spanish ''Lucayos'', itself a hispanicization derived in turn from the Taíno ''Lukku-Cairi'' (which the people used for themselves), meaning "people of the islands". (The Taíno word for "island", ''cairi'', became ''cayo'' in Spanish and "cay" in English pelled "key" in American English) Some crania and artifacts of "Ciboney type" were reportedly found on Andros Island, but if some Ciboney did reach the Bahamas ahead of the Lucayans, they left no known evidence of occupation. Som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guanahani
Guanahaní is an island in the Bahamas that was the first land in the New World sighted and visited by Christopher Columbus' first voyage, on 12 October 1492. It is a bean-shaped island that Columbus changed from its native Taíno name to San Salvador. Guanahaní has traditionally been identified with Watlings Island, which was officially renamed San Salvador Island in 1925 as a result, but modern scholars are divided on the accuracy of this identification and several alternative candidates in and around the southern Bahamas have been proposed as well. Primary sources Letter from Columbus himself Upon his return to Spain in the spring of 1493, Columbus wrote a letter to Luis de Santangel, one of his patrons at the Royal Court of Castile. The letter was printed widely and translated into many languages, spreading the news of the discovery throughout Europe. In the letter, Columbus mentions ''Guanahani'' as the name of the first island he discovered, but provides no other de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustavus Fox
Gustavus Vasa Fox (June 13, 1821 – October 29, 1883) was an officer of the United States Navy, who served during the Mexican–American War, and as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the Civil War. Life and career Fox was born at Saugus, Massachusetts, attended Lowell High School Lowell, Massachusetts from 1836-1838. On January 12, 1838, Fox was appointed midshipman. During the Mexican–American War, he served in the brig in the squadron of Commodore Matthew Perry, and took part in the capture of Tabasco, Mexico, on January 14–16, 1847. He later commanded several mail steamers. He resigned from the Navy on July 30, 1856, and engaged in the manufacture of woolen materials. At the start of the American Civil War he volunteered for service. President Abraham Lincoln gave him a temporary appointment in the Navy and sent him in the steamer ''Baltic'' to the relief of Fort Sumter. Fox could not relieve the fort before Confederate bombardment forced its surrender, but after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Salvador Island
San Salvador Island (known as Watling's Island from the 1680s until 1925) is an island and district of The Bahamas. It is widely believed that during Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World, this island was the first land he sighted and visited on 12 October 1492. He named it ''San Salvador'' after Christ the Saviour. Columbus's records indicate that the native Lucayan inhabitants of the territory, who called their island Guanahaní, were "sweet and gentle". History When he made landfall on the small island of San Salvador in October 1492, Columbus thought he had reached the East Indies, which was precisely his quest: to find an all-water route to the Orient so that European traders of precious spices could maximise their profits by cutting out Muslim middlemen. Additionally and more specifically, he was working on behalf of the Spanish to surpass the Portuguese, who had established trade routes around the Horn of Africa, a trans-Atlantic route being p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Judge
Joseph Judge (February 4, 1928—April 20, 1996) was a writer and editor for '' National Geographic'' magazine, retiring as Senior Associate Editor in 1990 after 25 years of service. Early life Judge was born in Washington, D.C. His parents were Joe Judge, the baseball player, and Alma Gauvreau Judge. He attended Gonzaga College High School and then The Catholic University of America, graduating in 1950. He served in the United States Army and subsequently worked for ''Life'' magazine in New York. He married Phyllis Mitchell of Scituate, Massachusetts in 1956. Government career Judge returned to Washington to work as a special assistant at the United States Department of Labor, working in the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. ''National Geographic'' career As a writer for ''National Geographic'', Judge wrote articles on Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home); Williamsburg; Washington, D.C.; Boston, Massachusetts; New Orleans, Louisiana; Florence, Italy; South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, and the study of world culture and history. The National Geographic Society's logo is a yellow portrait frame—rectangular in shape—which appears on the margins surrounding the front covers of its magazines and as its television channel logo. Through National Geographic Partners (a joint venture with The Walt Disney Company), the Society operates the magazine, TV channels, a website, worldwide events, and other media operations. Overview The National Geographic Society was founded on 13 January 1888 "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge". It is governed by a board of trustees whose 33 members include distinguished educators, business exec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
