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Pêro Da Covilhã
Pêro da Covilhã (; c. 1460 – after 1526), sometimes written Pero de Covilhã, was a Portuguese diplomat and explorer. He was a native of Covilhã in Beira, Portugal, Beira. In his early life he had gone to Crown of Castile, Castile and entered the service of Don Juan de Guzmán, brother of Enrique de Guzmán, 2nd Duke of Medina Sidonia. Later, when War of the Castilian Succession, war broke out between Castile and Portugal, he returned to his own country, and attached himself, first as a groom, then as a squire, to Afonso V of Portugal and his successor John II of Portugal. In 1487, his overland expedition made its way to India, exploring trade opportunities with the Indians and Arabs, and winding up finally in Ethiopia. His detailed report was eagerly read in Lisbon, as Portugal became the world's best informed center for global geography and trade routes. Mission to the East Covilhã was an adventurer of low birth but an adept swordsman and loyal servant to the Por ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Padrão Dos Descobrimentos
A ''padrão'' (literally "standard") (, ''flag, standard''; plural: ) is a stone pillar left by Portuguese maritime explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries to record significant landfalls and thereby establish primacy and possession. They were often placed on promontories and capes or at the mouths of major rivers. Early markers were simple wooden pillars or crosses but they deteriorated quickly in the tropical climate where they were often erected. Later, ''padrões'' were carved from stone in the form of a pillar surmounted by a cross and the coat of arms of Portugal, royal coat of arms. History Diogo Cão was the first to place stone padrões on his voyage of discovery along the coast of Africa in 1482–1484. They had been carved ahead of time in Portugal and carried in his ship at the behest of John II of Portugal, King João II. Cão placed the pillars at points in what is now Gabon, Angola and Namibia. The first was installed at the mouth of the river Congo. In August 148 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prester John
Prester John () was a mythical Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Church of the East, Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian state, Christian nation lost amid the pagans and Muslims in the Orient. The accounts were often embellished with various tropes of medieval popular fantasy, depicting Prester John as a descendant of the Three Magi, ruling a kingdom full of riches, marvels, and strange creatures. At first, Prester John was imagined to reside in India. Tales of the Nestorian Christians' evangelistic success there and of Thomas the Apostle's subcontinental travels as documented in works like the ''Acts of Thomas'' probably provided the first seeds of the legend. As Europeans became aware of the Mongols and their empire, accounts placed the king in Central Asia, and eventually Portuguese explorers came to believe that the term was a reference to Ethiopian Empire, Ethiopia, by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suakin
Suakin or Sawakin (, Beja: ''Oosook'') is a port city in northeastern Sudan, on the west coast of the Red Sea. It was formerly the region's chief port, but is now secondary to Port Sudan, about north. Suakin used to be considered the height of medieval luxury on the Red Sea, but the old city built of coral is now in ruins. In 1983, the adjacent historic mainland town, known as the Geyf, had a population of 18,030 and the 2009 population was estimated at 43,337. Ferries run daily from Suakin to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Etymology The Beja name for Suakin is ''Oosook''. This is possibly from the Arabic word ''suq'', meaning market. In Beja, the locative case for this is ''isukib'', whence Suakin might have derived.Berg, RobertSuakin: Time and Tide. ''Saudi Aramco World.'' The spelling on Admiralty charts in the late 19th century was "Sauakin", but in the popular press "Suakim" was predominant. History Ancient Suakin was likely Ptolemy's Port of Good Hope, Limen Evangelis, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
El-Tor
El Tor ( ''/'' ), also romanized as ''Al-Tur'' and ''At-Tur'' and known as ''Tur Sinai'', formerly Raithu, is a small city and the capital of the South Sinai Governorate of Egypt. The name of the city comes from the Arabic term for the mountain where the prophet Moses is believed to have received the Tablets of the Law from God; this mountain is designated ''Jabal Al Tor''. At-Tur itself appears to have been founded in the 13th century near the site of the ancient Raythou (medieval ''Raya''). The El tor strain of cholera was discovered there in 1905. It was a quarantine camp for Muslim pilgrims returning from Hajj (the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca). Known for its springs, the city is an important tourist destination in the South Sinai Governorate along with Sharm El Sheikh and Saint Catherine. History Monastery The Raithu desert is situated around El Tor, between Saint Catherine and the Red Sea. It is part of the Archdiocese of Mount Sinai and Raithu of the Eastern Orthodox ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of largest cities in the Arab world, the Arab world, and List of largest metropolitan areas of the Middle East, the Middle East. The Greater Cairo metropolitan area is List of largest cities, one of the largest in the world by population with over 22.1 million people. The area that would become Cairo was part of ancient Egypt, as the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis, Egypt, Memphis and Heliopolis (ancient Egypt), Heliopolis are near-by. Located near the Nile Delta, the predecessor settlement was Fustat following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641 next to an existing ancient Roman empire, Roman fortress, Babylon Fortress, Babylon. Subsequently, Cairo was founded by the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid dynasty in 969. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexandria
Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile Delta, Nile River delta. Founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great, Alexandria grew rapidly and became a major centre of Hellenic civilisation, eventually replacing Memphis, Egypt, Memphis, in present-day Greater Cairo, as Egypt's capital. Called the "Bride of the Mediterranean" and "Pearl of the Mediterranean Coast" internationally, Alexandria is a popular tourist destination and an important industrial centre due to its natural gas and petroleum, oil pipeline transport, pipelines from Suez. The city extends about along the northern coast of Egypt and is the largest city on the Mediterranean, the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second-largest in Egypt (after Cairo), the List of largest cities in the Arab world, fourth- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhodes
Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes (regional unit), Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean Administrative regions of Greece, administrative region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is the Rhodes (city), city of Rhodes, which had 50,636 inhabitants in 2011. In 2022, the island had a population of 125,113 people. It is located northeast of Crete and southeast of Athens. Rhodes has several nicknames, such as "Island of the Sun" due to its patron sun god Helios, "The Pearl Island", and "The Island of the Knights", named after the Knights Hospitaller, Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who ruled the island from 1310 to 1522. Historically, Rhodes was famous for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Sev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosimo De' Medici
Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (27 September 1389 – 1 August 1464) was an Italian banker and politician who established the House of Medici, Medici family as effective rulers of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance. His power derived from his wealth as a banker and intermarriage with other rich and powerful families. He was a patron of arts, learning, and architecture. He spent over 600,000 gold florins (approx. $500 million inflation adjusted) on art and culture, including Donatello, Donatello's ''David (Donatello, bronze), David'', the first freestanding Nude (art), nude male sculpture since antiquity. Despite his influence, his power was not absolute; he was viewed by fellow Florentine politicians as first among equals rather than an autocrat.Martines, Lauro (2011). ''The Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 1390–1460''. University of Toronto Press. p. 8. Florence's legislative councils resisted his proposals throughout his political career, even sending h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naples
Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of Naples, province-level municipality is the third most populous Metropolitan cities of Italy, metropolitan city in Italy with a population of 2,958,410 residents, and the List of urban areas in the European Union, eighth most populous in the European Union. Naples metropolitan area, Its metropolitan area stretches beyond the boundaries of the city wall for approximately . Naples also plays a key role in international diplomacy, since it is home to NATO's Allied Joint Force Command Naples and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean. Founded by Greeks in the 1st millennium BC, first millennium BC, Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world. In the eighth century BC, a colony known as Parthenope () was e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barcelona
Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within city limits,Barcelona: Población por municipios y sexo – Instituto Nacional de Estadística. (National Statistics Institute) its urban area extends to numerous neighbouring municipalities within the province of Barcelona and is home to around 5.3 million people, making it the fifth most populous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fra Mauro
Fra Mauro, O.S.B. Cam., (c.1400–1464) was an Italian ( Venetian) cartographer who lived in the Republic of Venice. He created the most detailed and accurate map of the world up until that time, the Fra Mauro map. Mauro was a monk of the Camaldolese Monastery of St. Michael, located on the island of Murano in the Venetian Lagoon. It was there that he maintained a cartography workshop. He also was employed by some very powerful men like Prince Henry the Navigator. Biography Fra Mauro was born before or around the year 1400. In his youth, Mauro had traveled extensively as a merchant and a soldier. He was familiar with the Middle East. He is recorded in the records of the Monastery of St. Michael from 1409. As a lay member of the monastery, Mauro was employed as mapmaker. In the records of the monastery his main job was recorded as collecting the monastery's rents, but from the 1450s he is also mentioned as the creator of a series of world maps. Although he was no longer f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European Age of Discovery, exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America. The name ''Christopher Columbus'' is the Anglicisation (linguistics), anglicization of the Latin . Growing up on the coast of Liguria, he went to sea at a young age and traveled 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 a son, Diego Columbus, Diego, and was based in Lisbon for several years. He later took a Castilian mistress, Beatriz Enríquez de Arana, who bore a son, Ferdinand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
