Torres Vedras Municipality
Torres Vedras () is a municipality in the Portuguese district of Lisbon, approximately north of the capital Lisbon in the Oeste region, in the Centro of Portugal. The population was 83,075, in an area of . History In 1148, Afonso I took the town of Torres Vedras from the Moors, in the then region of Estremadura, an area encircled by gentle hills and valleys. Situated in the former district of Lisbon, Torres Vedras is a strong agricultural region linked with its vineyards and intense commercial and industrial life, resulting in a dynamic pole in the western subregion of Portugal. King Afonso III conceded a foral (''charter'') in 1250, which was later confirmed by King Manuel I in 1510. This latter decree conferred on the town many of the municipal privileges that it held for 729 years. While travelling through this district, King Afonso III and Queen Beatrice, ordered the construction of a municipal hall, alongside the ancient castle (which today no longer exists). For h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Centro Region, Portugal
The Central Region ( pt, Região do Centro, ) or Central Portugal is one of the NUTS statistical regions of Portugal, statistical regions of Portugal. The cities with major administrative status inside this region are Coimbra, Aveiro, Portugal, Aveiro, Viseu, Caldas da Rainha, Leiria, Castelo Branco, Portugal, Castelo Branco, Covilhã, Torres Vedras and Guarda, Portugal, Guarda. It is one of the seven Regions of Portugal (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, NUTS II subdivisions). It is also one of the regions of Europe, as given by the European Union for statistical and Geography, geographical purposes. Its area totals . As of 2011, its population totalled 2,327,026 inhabitants, with a population density of 82 inhabitants per square kilometre. History Inhabited by the Lusitanians, an Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people living in the western Iberian Peninsula, the Roman Republic, Romans settled in the region and colonized it as a part of the Roman Province of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Afonso III Of Portugal
Afonso III (; rare English alternatives: ''Alphonzo'' or ''Alphonse''), or ''Affonso'' (Archaic Portuguese), ''Alfonso'' or ''Alphonso'' (Portuguese-Galician) or ''Alphonsus'' (Latin), the Boulonnais ( Port. ''o Bolonhês''), King of Portugal (5 May 121016 February 1279) was the first to use the title ''King of Portugal and the Algarve'', from 1249. He was the second son of King Afonso II of Portugal and his wife, Urraca of Castile; he succeeded his brother, King Sancho II of Portugal, who died on 4 January 1248. Early life Afonso was born in Coimbra. As the second son of King Afonso II of Portugal, he was not expected to inherit the throne, which was destined to go to his elder brother Sancho. He lived mostly in France, where he married Countess Matilda II of Boulogne in 1238, thereby becoming count of Boulogne, Mortain, Aumale and Dammartin-en-Goële ''jure uxoris''. Reign In 1246, conflicts between his brother, the king, and the church became unbearable. In 1247, Pope Inno ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Afonso V Of Portugal
Afonso V () (15 January 1432 – 28 August 1481), known by the sobriquet the African (), was King of Portugal from 1438 until his death in 1481, with a brief interruption in 1477. His sobriquet refers to his military conquests in Northern Africa. As of 1471, Afonso V was the first king of Portugal to claim dominion over a plural "Kingdom of the Algarves", instead of the singular "Kingdom of the Algarve". Territories added to the Portuguese crown lands in North Africa during the 15th century came to be referred to as possessions of the Kingdom of the Algarve (now a region of southern Portugal), not the Kingdom of Portugal. The "Algarves" then were considered to be the southern Portuguese territories on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. Early life Afonso was born in Sintra, the second son of King Edward of Portugal by his wife Eleanor of Aragon. Following the death of his older brother, Infante João (1429–1433), Afonso acceded to the position of heir apparent and was made ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Portuguese Discoveries
Portuguese maritime exploration resulted in the numerous territories and maritime routes recorded by the Portuguese as a result of their intensive maritime journeys during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of European exploration, chronicling and mapping the coasts of Africa and Asia, then known as the East Indies, and Canada and Brazil (the West Indies), in what came to be known as the Age of Discovery. Methodical expeditions started in 1419 along West Africa's coast under the sponsorship of prince Henry the Navigator, with Bartolomeu Dias reaching the Cape of Good Hope and entering the Indian Ocean in 1488. Ten years later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to India, arriving in Calicut and starting a maritime route from Portugal to India. Portuguese explorations then proceeded to southeast Asia, where they reached Japan in 1542, forty-four years after their first arrival in India. In 1500, the Portuguese nobleman Ped ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conquest Of Ceuta
The conquest of Ceuta by the Portuguese on 21 August 1415 marks an important step in the beginning of the Portuguese Empire in Africa. History In 711, shortly after the Arab conquest of North Africa, the city of Ceuta was used as a staging ground in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. However, the city was destroyed in 740 and only rebuilt in the 9th century, passing to the Caliphate of Córdoba in the 10th century. In the subsequent centuries it remained under the rule of the Almoravids and Almohads as well as various Andalusian Taifas. Prior to its capture by the Portuguese, Ceuta had seen a period of political instability in previous decades, under competing interests from the Marinid Empire and the Kingdom of Granada. In the early 1400s, Portugal cast an eye at gaining Ceuta. The prospect of taking of Ceuta offered the younger nobility an opportunity to win wealth and glory. The chief promoter of the Ceuta expedition was João Afonso, royal overseer of finance. Ceuta's ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick III (German: ''Friedrich III,'' 21 September 1415 – 19 August 1493) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1452 until his death. He was the fourth king and first emperor of the House of Habsburg. He was the penultimate emperor to be crowned by the pope, and the last to be crowned in Rome. Prior to his imperial coronation, he was duke of the Inner Austrian lands of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola from 1424, and also acted as regent over the Duchy of Austria from 1439. He was elected and crowned King of Germany in 1440. His reign of 53 years is the longest in the history of the Holy Roman Empire or the German Monarchy. Upon his death in 1493 he was succeeded by his son Maximilian I. During his reign, Frederick concentrated on re-uniting the Habsburg " hereditary lands" of Austria and took a lesser interest in Imperial affairs. Nevertheless, by his dynastic entitlement to Hungary as well as by the Burgundian inheritance, he laid the foundations for the later Habsburg Em ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eleanor Of Aragon, Queen Of Portugal
Eleanor of Aragon (2 May 1402 – 19 February 1445) was Queen of Portugal as the spouse of Edward I of Portugal Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia and the regent of Portugal as the guardian of her son. She was the daughter of and . Biography Eleanor's father died when she was 14 years old. Her mother eventually arranged her marriage to the future King[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Edward I Of Portugal
Edward ( pt, Duarte (; 31 October 1391 – 9 September 1438), also called Edward the King Philosopher (''Duarte o Rei-Filósofo'') or the Eloquent (''o Eloquente''), was the King of Portugal from 1433 until his death. He was born in Viseu, the son of John I of Portugal and his wife, Philippa of Lancaster. Edward was the oldest member of the " Illustrious Generation" of accomplished royal children who contributed to the development of Portuguese civilization during the 15th century. As a cousin of several English kings, he became a Knight of the Garter. Early life Before he ascended the throne, Edward always followed his father in the affairs of the kingdom. He was knighted in 1415 after the Portuguese capture of the city of Ceuta in North Africa, across from Gibraltar. He became king in 1433, when his father died of the plague. As king, Edward soon showed interest in building internal political consensus. During his short reign of five years, he called the Portuguese Cortes (the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eleanor Of Portugal, Holy Roman Empress
Eleanor of Portugal (18 September 1434 – 3 September 1467) was Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. A Portuguese ''infanta'' (princess), daughter of King Edward of Portugal and his wife Eleanor of Aragon, she was the consort of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III and the mother of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Background Eleanor was born in Torres Vedras on 18 September 1434, one of the nine children of King Edward of Portugal and Eleanor of Aragon. She was the third eldest daughter, but her two older sisters died when they were young, leaving Eleanor as the eldest surviving daughter. When her father died five days before her fourth birthday, Eleanor's brother Afonso V succeeded him as king with her mother as regent. The following March, her mother gave birth to another daughter, Joan, who would become the notorious wife of Henry IV of Castile. In 1440, Eleanor's mother was forced to go into exile in Castile after losing litigation against her brother-in-law Peter, Duke o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Count Of Barcelos
Count of Barcelos (in Portuguese ''Conde de Barcelos'') is a title of nobility, the first to be granted in Portugal. It was created in 1298 by king Denis I and initially it was a non hereditary title, although most of the holders belonged to the Teles de Menezes family. It was only after the death of the 6th Count, when it was granted to Nuno Álvares Pereira, that the title became hereditary. The 8th Count of Barcelos was created Duke of Braganza in 1442, by his nephew king Afonso V, and his descendants rose to the Portuguese throne after the country regained its independence from Spain in 1640. Initially, the seat of the Counts of Barcelos was the Castle of Barcelos, a large medieval structure that overlooks the Cávado river. After having been granted the Dukedom of Braganza, the family moved to a larger and more urbane palace in Guimarães. The title is currently held by Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza and 31st Count of Barcelos, claimant to the throne of Portugal. List of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Denis Of Portugal
Denis (, ; 9 October 1261 – 7 January 1325 in Santarém), called the Farmer King (''Rei Lavrador'') and the Poet King (''Rei Poeta''), was King of Portugal. The eldest son of Afonso III of Portugal by his second wife, Beatrice of Castile, and grandson of Afonso II of Portugal, Denis succeeded his father in 1279. His marriage to Elizabeth of Aragon, who was later canonised as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, was arranged in 1281 when she was 10 years old. Denis ruled Portugal for over 46 years. He worked to reorganise his country's economy and gave an impetus to Portuguese agriculture. He ordered the planting of a large pine forest (that still exists today) near Leiria to prevent the soil degradation that threatened the region and to serve as a source of raw materials for the construction of the royal ships. He was also known for his poetry, which constitutes an important contribution to the development of Portuguese as a literary language. Reign In 1290, Denis began to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |