|
Praia (Azores)
Praia (officially São Mateus) is a Portuguese civil parish in the municipality of Santa Cruz da Graciosa, on the island of Graciosa, in the Azores. It still retains its former name ''Praia'' locally, owing to the parish having once been the historical municipality of Praia. The population in 2011 was 836, in an area of 12.82 km². History São Mateus was one of the first Captaincies of the Azores, and administered by its Captain-Donatorio, Duarte Barreto. The main centre and parish seat obtained the category, and elevated to the title, of ''vila'' (or town) during the reign of King John III, by royal charter on 1 April 1546. It operated as the municipal seat until 1867, when its role was superseded by the much larger Santa Cruz da Graciosa. Yet, it still retained the honorific title of ''vila''. During this time, the settlers of the island formed historical, social and economic contacts with the peoples and economy of Terceira, in addition to those ships travelling betwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graciosa
Graciosa Island () (literally "graceful" or "enchanting" in Portuguese), also referred to as the ''White Island'', is a volcanic island in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the northernmost of the Central Group of islands in the Azores archipelago. The ovular Portuguese island has an area of , a length of and a width of . Its landscape is dominated by a central caldera (the Caldeira) located in the southeast. History In addition to the other islands of the Central Group, Graciosa was explored by Portuguese navigators during the first quarter of the 15th century, although there exist no accounts of the first sighting of the island. May 2, 1450 has frequently been referred to as the date of the island's "discovery", although there exists no documentation to support this date. Paradoxically, it is clear that in 1440, by order of Prince Henry the Navigator, cattle and swine were settled on the island in order to facilitate colonization. Similarly, it is unclear the names of the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Santa Cruz Da Graciosa
Santa Cruz da Graciosa () is a Portuguese municipality on the volcanic island of Graciosa, in the archipelago of the Azores. The population in 2011 was 4,391, in an area of 60.66 km2. It includes four local parishes and one municipal government structure, which administers the entire island. History While the date of its first discovery is uncertain, it is known that its first settlers arrived from the island of Terceira around 1450. One of the first settlers was Vasco Gil Sodre. The island's volcanic soil is rich and supports cultivation of fruits, grains and grapes used in winemaking. The early settlement was primarily agrarian, but by 1486 its population had grown sufficiently to warrant the founding of the ''vila'' (or town) of Santa Cruz in 1486, while Praia lost this role. Between the 16th-17th century, Graciosa was regularly attacked by pirates and privateers, which obliged the local government to construct fortifications along the island's coast for defense. Over t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Matthew
Matthew the Apostle was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. According to Christian traditions, he was also one of the four Evangelists as author of the Gospel of Matthew, and thus is also known as Matthew the Evangelist. The claim of his gospel authorship is rejected by most modern biblical scholars, though the "traditional authorship still has its defenders." The New Testament records that as a disciple, he followed Jesus. Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria, relate that Matthew preached the gospel in Judea before going to other countries. In the New Testament Matthew is mentioned in Matthew 9:9 and Matthew 10:3 as a tax collector (in the New International Version and other translations of the Bible) who, while sitting at the "receipt of custom" in Capernaum, was called to follow Jesus. He is also listed among the Twelve Disciples, but without identification of his background, in Mark 3:18, Luke 6:15 and Acts 1:13. In passages parallel to Matth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it shares Portugal-Spain border, the longest uninterrupted border in the European Union; to the south and the west is the North Atlantic Ocean; and to the west and southwest lie the Macaronesia, Macaronesian archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, which are the two Autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous regions of Portugal. Lisbon is the Capital city, capital and List of largest cities in Portugal, largest city, followed by Porto, which is the only other Metropolitan areas in Portugal, metropolitan area. The western Iberian Peninsula has been continuously inhabited since Prehistoric Iberia, prehistoric times, with the earliest signs of Human settlement, settlement dating to 5500 BC. Celts, Celtic and List of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Azores
The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atlantic Ocean, about west of Lisbon, about northwest of Morocco, about southeast of Newfoundland, Canada, and the same distance southwest of Cork, Ireland. Its main industries are agriculture, dairy farming, livestock, fishing, and tourism, which has become a major service activity in the region. In the 20th century and to some extent into the 21st, they have served as a waypoint for refueling aircraft flying between Europe and North America. The government of the Azores employs a large percentage of the population directly or indirectly in the service and tertiary sectors. The largest city of the Azores is Ponta Delgada. The culture, dialect, cuisine, and traditions of the Azorean islands vary considerably, because these remote island ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John III Of Portugal
John III ( ; 6 June 1502 – 11 June 1557), nicknamed The Pious ( Portuguese: ''o Piedoso''), was the King of Portugal and the Algarve from 1521 until he died in 1557. He was the son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon, the third daughter of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. John succeeded his father in 1521 at the age of nineteen. During his rule, Portuguese possessions were extended in Asia and the Americas through the Portuguese colonization of Brazil. John III's policy of reinforcing Portugal's bases in India, such as Goa, secured Portugal's monopoly over the spice trade of cloves and nutmeg from the Maluku Islands. On the eve of his death in 1557, the Portuguese Empire had a global dimension and spanned almost . During his reign, the Portuguese became the first Europeans to contact Muromachi Japan. He abandoned Muslim territories in North Africa in favor of trade with India and investments in Brazil. In Europe, he imp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Massif
A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an individual mountain. As a purely scientific term in geology, however, a "massif" is separately and more specifically defined as a section of a planet's crust (geology), crust that is demarcated by geologic fault, faults or lithospheric flexure, flexures. In the plate tectonics, movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole. A massif is a smaller structural unit than a tectonic plate and is considered the fourth-largest driving force in geomorphology. The word "massif" originates from French (in which the word also means "massive"), where it is used to refer to a large mountain mass or compact group of connected mountains forming an independent portion of a range. The Cydonia (regi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sargassum
''Sargassum'' is a genus of brown macroalgae ( seaweed) in the order Fucales of the Phaeophyceae class. Numerous species are distributed throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world, where they generally inhabit shallow water and coral reefs, and the genus is widely known for its planktonic (free-floating) species. Most species within the class Phaeophyceae are predominantly cold-water organisms that benefit from nutrients upwelling, but the genus ''Sargassum'' appears to be an exception. The species within Sargassum are normally benthic, but some of the species may take on a planktonic, often pelagic existence after being removed from reefs during rough weather. Two species (''S. natans'' and ''S. fluitans'') have become holopelagic—reproducing vegetatively and never attaching to the seafloor during their lifecycles. The Atlantic Ocean's Sargasso Sea was named after the algae, as it hosts a large amount of ''Sargassum''. The size of annual blooms in the Atlan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
