|
History Of Havana
Havana was founded in the sixteenth century displacing Santiago de Cuba as the island's most important city when it became a major port for Atlantic shipping, particularly the Spanish treasure fleet. History Founding of Havana Havana was first visited by Spaniards during Sebastián de Ocampo's circumnavigation of the island in 1508.Historia de la Construcción Naval en Cuba In 1510, the first Spanish colonists arrived from the island of Hispaniola and began the conquest of Cuba. Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded San Cristóbal de la Habana in 1514, on the southern coast of the island, near the present town of Surgidero de Batabanó, Cuba, Batabanó, or more likely on the banks of the Mayabeque River close to Playa Mayabeque. All attempts to found a city on Cuba's south coast failed, however, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Havana
Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba ''The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency. It is the most populous city, the largest by area, and the List of metropolitan areas in the West Indies, second largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The population in 2012 was 2,106,146 inhabitants, and its area is for the capital city side and 8,475.57 km2 for the metropolitan zone. Its official population was 1,814,207 inhabitants in 2023. Havana was founded by the Spanish Empire, Spanish in the 16th century. It served as a springboard for the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish conquest of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pánfilo De Narváez
Pánfilo de Narváez (; born 1470 or 1478, died 1528) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' and soldier in the Americas. Born in Spain, he first sailed to the island of Jamaica (then Santiago) in 1510 as a soldier. Pánfilo participated in the conquest of Cuba and led an expedition to Camagüey, escorting Bartolomé de las Casas. He is best remembered as the leader of two failed expeditions, the first of which began in 1519 and ended in 1520 after defeat and capture in battle against Hernán Cortés. Pánfilo's second expedition, the Narváez expedition, began in 1527 and ended for him with his death the following year. Only four men returned from it, reaching present-day Mexico City in 1536. He was named an '' adelantado'' by King Carlos V before embarking on that final expedition. Birth and family Pánfilo de Narváez was born in Castile (in either Navalmanzano, near Cuéllar, or Valladolid) in 1470 or 1478. He was a relative of Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, the first Spa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques De Sores
Jacques de Sores was a French pirate and corsair who attacked and burnt Havana, Cuba in 1555. Other than his attack on Havana, little is known of de Sores. He was nicknamed "The Exterminating Angel" ("L'Ange Exterminateur"). He was the leader of a band of Huguenot pirates and a lieutenant or former lieutenant of another French pirate, François Le Clerc, who was called "Pegleg" or "Jambe de Bois" on account of his wooden leg. Le Clerc and Sores had set out from France in 1553 with three royal ships and a number of privateers under commission from Francis I of France who was envious of the riches returning to Spain from the New World. Le Clerc had raided Santiago de Cuba in 1554, and some accounts mention a raid on Santiago de Cuba by de Sores, although whether this was as part of the attack by Le Clerc is not clear. He may have used Cayo Romano and Cayo Coco in the archipelago of Jardines del Rey adjacent to the northern Cuban coast as a base of operations. Details of the atta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Corsairs
Corsairs () were privateers, authorised to conduct raids on shipping of a foreign state at war with the Kingdom of France, on behalf of the French crown. Seized vessels and cargo were sold at auction, with the corsair captain entitled to a portion of the proceeds. Although not History of the French Navy, French Navy personnel, corsairs were considered legitimate combatants in France (and allied nations), provided the commanding officer of the vessel was in possession of a valid letter of marque ( or , the latter giving ''corsairs'' their name), and the officers and crew conducted themselves according to contemporary admiralty law. By acting on behalf of the French Crown, if captured by the enemy, they could in principle claim treatment as prisoners of war, instead of being considered pirates. Because corsairs gained a swashbuckling reputation, the word "corsair" is also used generically as a more romantic or flamboyant way of referring to privateers, or even to pirates. The Barbar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and valuable goods, or taking hostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, and vessels used for piracy are called pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Historic examples of such areas include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic structures facilitated pirate attacks. The term ''piracy'' generally refers to maritime piracy, although the term has been generalized to refer to acts committed on land, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buccaneer
Buccaneers were a kind of privateer or free sailors, and pirates particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 until about 1688, during a time when governments in the Caribbean area were not strong enough to suppress them. Martinique was a home port for French buccaneers as well as pirates like Captain Crapeau. Originally the name applied to the landless hunters of wild boars and cattle in the largely uninhabited areas of Tortuga and Hispaniola. The meat they caught was smoked over a slow fire in little huts the French called ''boucans'' to make ''viande boucanée'' – ''jerked meat'' or '' jerky'' – which they sold to the corsairs who preyed on the (largely Spanish) shipping and settlements of the Caribbean. Eventually the term was applied to the corsairs and (later) privateers themselves, also known as the Brethren of the Coast. Although c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seven Cities Of Gold
The myth of the Seven Cities of Gold, also known as the Seven Cities of Cíbola (), was popular in the 16th century and later featured in several works of popular culture. According to legend, the seven cities of gold referred to Aztec mythology revolving around the Pueblos of the Spanish Santa Fe de Nuevo México, Nuevo México, modern New Mexico and Southwestern United States. Besides "Cíbola", names associated with similar lost cities of gold also included El Dorado, Paititi, City of the Caesars, Lake Parime, Lake Parime at Manoa, Antilia, and Quivira. Origins of myth/legend In the 16th century, the Spanish people, Spaniards in New Spain (Mexico) began to hear rumors of "Seven Cities of Gold" called Zuni-Cibola Complex, "Cíbola" located across the desert, hundreds of miles to the north. The stories may have their root in an earlier Portugal, Portuguese legend about seven cities founded on the island of Antillia by a Catholic expedition in the 8th century, or one based on th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El Dorado
El Dorado () is a mythical city of gold supposedly located somewhere in South America. The king of this city was said to be so rich that he would cover himself from head to foot in gold dust – either daily or on certain ceremonial occasions – before diving into a sacred lake to wash it off. The legend was first recorded in the 16th century by Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish colonists in the Americas; they referred to the king as El Dorado, 'The Golden One', a name which eventually came to be applied to the city itself. It is unknown whether this story had any basis in fact, but it may have been inspired by the culture of the Muisca, an indigenous people inhabiting a plateau in the Andes, Andean mountains in modern-day Colombia. The Muisca were skilled goldsmiths; they made frequent use of golden objects in their religious ceremonies, and also manufactured ornaments and jewellery for trade with the neighbouring tribes. Early European settlers, searching for the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Precious Stones
A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, semiprecious stone, or simply gem) is a piece of mineral crystal which, when cut or polished, is used to make jewellery, jewelry or other adornments. Certain Rock (geology), rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, and obsidian) and occasionally organic chemistry, organic materials that are not minerals (such as amber, Jet (gemstone), jet, and pearl) may also be used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some softer minerals such as brazilianite may be used in jewelry because of their color or Lustre (mineralogy), luster or other physical properties that have aesthetic value. However, generally speaking, soft minerals are not typically used as gemstones by virtue of their brittleness and lack of durability. Found all over the world, the industry of coloured gemstones (i.e. anything other than diamonds) is currently estimated at US$1.55billion and is projected to s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. Silver is found in the Earth's crust in the pure, free elemental form ("native metal, native silver"), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc Refining (metallurgy), refining. Silver has long been valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many bullion coins, sometimes bimetallism, alongside gold: while it is more abundant than gold, it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is typically measured on a per-mille basis; a 94%-pure alloy is described as "0.940 fine". As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had an enduring role in most human cultures. Other than in currency and as an in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal, a group 11 element, and one of the noble metals. It is one of the least reactivity (chemistry), reactive chemical elements, being the second-lowest in the reactivity series. It is solid under standard temperature and pressure, standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental (native state (metallurgy), native state), as gold nugget, nuggets or grains, in rock (geology), rocks, vein (geology), veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as in electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). Gold is resistant to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
