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Porto Santo Island
Porto Santo Island () is a Portuguese island and municipality 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 neighbouring 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� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for separating the New World of the Americas (North America and South America) from the Old World of Afro-Eurasia (Africa, Asia, and Europe). Through its separation of Afro-Eurasia from the Americas, the Atlantic Ocean has played a central role in the development of human society, globalization, and the histories of many nations. While the Norse colonization of North America, Norse were the first known humans to cross the Atlantic, it was the expedition of Christopher Columbus in 1492 that proved to be the most consequential. Columbus's expedition ushered in an Age of Discovery, age of exploration and colonization of the Americas by European powers, most notably Portuguese Empire, Portugal, Spanish Empire, Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Knowledge Of All Kingdoms
The or ''Book of Knowledge of All Kingdoms'', also known as the ''Book of All Kingdoms'', is an anonymous 14th-century Castilian geographical and armorial manual (dated to ). It is written in the form of imaginary autobiographical travelogue of a Castilian mendicant friar, as he travels through the entire world, known and fanciful, from the westernmost Atlantic islands, through Europe, Asia, Africa and the Arctic, identifying all the lands, kings, lords and their armorial devices as he passes them. The only explicit information is that the anonymous author claims to have been born in Castile in 1305. The full title is also cited as "Book of the Knowledge of all the Kingdoms, Lands and Lordships that are in the World, and the arms and devices of each land and lordship, or of the kings and lords who possess them" (Markham 1912). The book's principal objective may have been as an armorial roll. Its choice of presenting itself in the form of an imaginary travelogue may ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Island Ecosystem
Island ecology is the study of island organisms and their interactions with each other and the environment. Islands account for nearly 1/6 of earth’s total land area,Paulay, G. 1994. Biodiversity on Oceanic Islands: Its Origin and Extinction. ''American Zoology'' 34: 134-144. yet the ecology of island ecosystems is vastly different from that of mainland communities. Their isolation and high availability of empty niches lead to increased speciation. As a result, island ecosystems comprise 30% of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, 50% of marine tropical diversity, and some of the most unusual and rare species.Gerlach, Justin. 2008Island biodiversity - issues and opportunities. World Conservation Congress Many species still remain unknown. The diversity of species on islands is highly impacted by human activities such as deforestation and introduction of the exotic species. In response, ecologists and managers are directing attention towards conservation and restoration ... [...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 '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 Desert, become quite cold during the 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. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated form of livestock, and a pet, having a widespread effect on ecologies and cultures. The most widespread rabbit genera are '' Oryctolagus'' and '' Sylvilagus''. The former, ''Oryctolagus'', includes the European rabbit, ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'', which is the ancestor of the hundreds of breeds of domestic rabbit and has been introduced on every continent except Antarctica. The latter, ''Sylvilagus'', includes over 13 wild rabbit species, among them the cottontails and tapetis. Wild rabbits not included in ''Oryctolagus'' and ''Sylvilagus'' include several species of limited distribution, including the pygmy rabbit, volcano rabbit, and Sumatran striped rabbit. Rabbits are a paraphyletic grouping, and do not constitute a clade, as ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donatário
A ' (Portuguese language, Portuguese for "donated" or "endowed [one]"), 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 kings of Portugal, king exempted these titleholders from normal Portuguese colonization, colonial administration; the donatários were comparable to a royal governor or a British Lord Proprietor. As the ''donataria'' were often captaincy, 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 ... [...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 the son of ''Micer'' Gabriele Pallastrelli, a Lombard nobleman from Piacenza, and second wife Bertolina Bracciforti. He was a Nobleman of John I of Portugal, who recognized his Coat of Arms and made him a Nobleman in 1433; he was married to Caterina Visconti (of Verona), with whom he came to Portugal in 1385, and in 1437 was granted two houses at the Sub-Ripas Street in the City of Coimbra. Nobleman and Fidalgo-Esquire of the House of Infante João, Lord of Reguengos and master of the Portuguese Order of Saint James (Santiago), he was granted in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arkan Simaan
Arkan Simaan (born 1945) is a Lebanese-French novelist. Biography Arkan 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 Brasília. 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 want ... [...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 to 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 ... [...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 d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John I Of Portugal
John I ( WP:IPA for Portuguese, [ʒuˈɐ̃w̃]; 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 1383–85 crisis, a succession war with Crown of Castile, Castile, preserving his country's independence and establishing the House of Aviz, 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 Royal bastard, natural son of King Peter I of Portugal by a woman named Teresa, who, according to the royal chronicler Fernão Lopes in ... [...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 The Portuguese conquest of Ceuta took place on 21 August 1415, between Portuguese forces under the command of King John I of Portugal and the Marinid Sultanate, Marinid sultanate of Morocco at the city of Ceuta. The city's defenses fell unde .... 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 Bartolome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
