1.
Camino de Santiago
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Many follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for their spiritual growth. It is also popular hiking and cycling enthusiasts as well as organized tours. The Way of St. Legend holds that St. Jamess remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain, the Way can take one of dozens of pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. Traditionally, as with most pilgrimages, the Way of Saint James began at ones home, however, a few of the routes are considered main ones. During the Middle Ages, the route was highly travelled, however, the Black Death, the Protestant Reformation, and political unrest in 16th century Europe led to its decline. By the 1980s, only a few pilgrims per year arrived in Santiago, later, the route attracted a growing number of modern-day pilgrims from around the globe. In October 1987, the route was declared the first European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe, whenever St. Jamess Day falls on a Sunday, the cathedral declares a Holy or Jubilee Year. Depending on leap years, Holy Years occur in 5,6, the most recent were 1982,1993,1999,2004, and 2010. The next will be 2021,2027, and 2032, the pilgrimage to Santiago has never ceased from the time of the discovery of St. Jamess remains, though there have been years of fewer pilgrims, particularly during European wars. The main pilgrimage route to Santiago follows an earlier Roman trade route, at night, the Milky Way overhead seems to point the way, so the route acquired the nickname Voie lactée – the Milky Way in French. The scallop shell, often found on the shores in Galicia, has long been the symbol of the Camino de Santiago. Over the centuries the scallop shell has taken on mythical, metaphorical and practical meanings, two versions of the most common myth about the origin of the symbol concern the death of Saint James, who was martyred by beheading in Jerusalem in 44 AD. According to Spanish legends, he had spent time preaching the gospel in Spain, version 1, After Jamess death, his disciples shipped his body to the Iberian Peninsula to be buried in what is now Santiago. Off the coast of Spain, a storm hit the ship. After some time, however, it washed ashore undamaged, covered in scallops, version 2, After Jamess death his body was transported by a ship piloted by an angel, back to the Iberian Peninsula to be buried in what is now Santiago. As the ship approached land, a wedding was taking place on shore, the young groom was on horseback, and on seeing the ship approaching, his horse got spooked, and horse and rider plunged into the sea. Through miraculous intervention, the horse and rider emerged from the water alive, the scallop shell also acts as a metaphor. The grooves in the shell, which meet at a point, represent the various routes pilgrims traveled, eventually arriving at a single destination
2.
Royal charter
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A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organisations such as cities or universities, Charters should be distinguished from warrants and letters of appointment, as they have perpetual effect. Typically, a Royal Charter is produced as a high-quality work of calligraphy on vellum, the British monarchy has issued over 980 royal charters. Of these about 750 remain in existence, the earliest was to the town of Tain in 1066, making it the oldest Royal Burgh in Scotland, followed by the University of Cambridge in 1231. Charters continue to be issued by the British Crown, a recent example being that awarded to the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity, Charters have been used in Europe since medieval times to create cities. The date that such a charter is granted is considered to be when a city is founded, at one time, a royal charter was the sole means by which an incorporated body could be formed, but other means are generally used nowadays instead. In the period before 1958,32 higher education institutes had been created by royal charter and these were typically engineering or technical institutions rather than universities. Royal decrees can therefore no longer grant higher education status or university status. A Royal Charter is granted by Order in Council, either creating an incorporated body and this is an exercise of the Royal Prerogative, and, in Canada, there are hundreds of organisations under Royal Charters. Such organisations include charities, businesses, colleges, universities, today, it is mostly charities and professional institutions who receive Royal Charters. Application for a charter is a petition to the Queen-in-Council, however, meeting these benchmarks does not guarantee the issuance of a Royal Charter. Companies, corporations, and societies in Canada founded under or augmented by a Royal Charter include, Royal Charter was issued in August 1826 to purchase and develop lands. Purchased the Crown Reserve of 1,384,413 acres, cities under Royal Charter are not subject to municipal Acts of Parliament applied generally to other municipalities, and instead are governed by legislation applicable to each city individually. The Royal Charter codifies the laws applied to the particular city, the Universitys Pontifical Charter was granted by Pope Leo XIII in 1889. Several Canadian private schools were founded or reconstituted under Royal Charter, the Royal Gibraltar Post Office was granted Royal Charter in 2005. The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club obtained Royal Charter in 1959 and it is one of the three banknote-issuing banks in Hong Kong. The Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch Chartered originally in 1847, disbanded 1859, the Institution of Engineers was incorporated by royal charter in 1935. A number of Irish institutions retain the Royal prefix, even though Republic of Ireland severed all remaining connections between the state and the British monarch in 1949, the University of South Africa received a Royal Charter in 1877
3.
Portugal
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Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, to the west and south it is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and to the east and north by Spain. The Portugal–Spain border is 1,214 kilometres long and considered the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union, the republic also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both autonomous regions with their own regional governments. The territory of modern Portugal has been settled, invaded. The Pre-Celts, Celts, Carthaginians and the Romans were followed by the invasions of the Visigothic, in 711 the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by the Moors, making Portugal part of Muslim Al Andalus. Portugal was born as result of the Christian Reconquista, and in 1139, Afonso Henriques was proclaimed King of Portugal, in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal established the first global empire, becoming one of the worlds major economic, political and military powers. Portugal monopolized the trade during this time, and the Portuguese Empire expanded with military campaigns led in Asia. After the 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established, democracy was restored after the Portuguese Colonial War and the Carnation Revolution in 1974. Shortly after, independence was granted to almost all its overseas territories, Portugal has left a profound cultural and architectural influence across the globe and a legacy of over 250 million Portuguese speakers today. Portugal is a country with a high-income advanced economy and a high living standard. It is the 5th most peaceful country in the world, maintaining a unitary semi-presidential republican form of government and it has the 18th highest Social Progress in the world, putting it ahead of other Western European countries like France, Spain and Italy. Portugal is a pioneer when it comes to drug decriminalization, as the nation decriminalized the possession of all drugs for use in 2001. The early history of Portugal is shared with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula located in South Western Europe, the name of Portugal derives from the joined Romano-Celtic name Portus Cale. Other influences include some 5th-century vestiges of Alan settlements, which were found in Alenquer, Coimbra, the region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by Neanderthals and then by Homo sapiens, who roamed the border-less region of the northern Iberian peninsula. These were subsistence societies that, although they did not establish prosperous settlements, neolithic Portugal experimented with domestication of herding animals, the raising of some cereal crops and fluvial or marine fishing. Chief among these tribes were the Calaicians or Gallaeci of Northern Portugal, the Lusitanians of central Portugal, the Celtici of Alentejo, a few small, semi-permanent, commercial coastal settlements were also founded in the Algarve region by Phoenicians-Carthaginians. Romans first invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 219 BC, during the last days of Julius Caesar, almost the entire peninsula had been annexed to the Roman Republic. The Carthaginians, Romes adversary in the Punic Wars, were expelled from their coastal colonies and it suffered a severe setback in 150 BC, when a rebellion began in the north
4.
Pinta (ship)
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La Pinta was the fastest of the three ships used by Christopher Columbus in his first transatlantic voyage in 1492. The New World was first sighted by Rodrigo de Triana aboard Pinta on 12 October 1492, the owner of Pinta was Cristobal Quintero. The Quintero brothers were owners from Palos. The owner of the ship allowed Martin Alonso Pinzon to take over the ship so he could keep an eye on the ship, by tradition Spanish ships were named after saints and usually given nicknames. Thus, Pinta, like Niña, was not the actual name. The actual name of Pinta is unknown, the origin of the ship is disputed but is believed to have been built in Spain in the year 1441. It was later rebuilt for use by Christopher Columbus, Pinta was square rigged and smaller than Santa María. The ship weighed approximately 60 tons with a deck length of 17 meters. The crew size was 26 men under Captain Martín Alonso Pinzón, the other ships of the Columbus expedition were Niña and Santa María. There are no known likenesses of Columbuss ships. Santa María was the largest, of a known as a carrack. They were called caravels, a name given to the smallest three-masted vessels. Columbus once used it for a vessel of forty tons, but it applied in Portuguese or Spanish use to a vessel ranging one hundred and twenty to one hundred. This word represents a capacity about one-tenth larger than that expressed by the modern English ton, Niña, Pinta, and Santa María were not the largest ships in Europe at the time. They were small trade ships surpassed in size by ships like Great Michael, built in Scotland in 1511 with a length of 73.2 m, and a crew of 300 sailors,120 gunners, and up to 1,000 soldiers. Peter von Danzig of the Hanseatic League was built in 1462 and was 51 m long. Another large ship, the English carrack Grace Dieu, was built during the period 1420–1439, was 66.4 m long, ships built in Europe in the fifteenth century were designed to sail the Mediterranean sea and the Atlantic ocean coastlines. Columbus smaller-sized ships were considered riskier on the ocean than larger ships
5.
Christopher Columbus
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Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World. Western imperialism and economic competition were emerging among European kingdoms through the establishment of routes and colonies. During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named San Salvador. Over the course of three voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America. These voyages had, therefore, an impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. He spearheaded the transatlantic trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating the genocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of spreading the Christian religion, Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies for which he had set course. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios, the name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and, in Spanish and he was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa, though the exact location remains disputed. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo were his brothers, Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood. He also had a sister named Bianchinetta, Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian. In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10, in 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern historians have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead and these competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars. In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro, later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in a convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe
6.
Francis Drake
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Sir Francis Drake, vice admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. With his incursion into the Pacific he inaugurated an era of privateering, Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588 and he died of dysentery in January 1596 after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico. His exploits made him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards, King Philip II was said to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats, about £4 million by modern standards, for his life. Francis Drake was born in Tavistock, Devon, England, although his birth is not formally recorded, it is known that he was born while the Six Articles were in force. Drake was two and twenty when he obtained the command of the Judith and this would date his birth to 1544. A date of c.1540 is suggested from two portraits, one a miniature painted by Nicholas Hilliard in 1581 when he was allegedly 42 and he was the eldest of the twelve sons of Edmund Drake, a Protestant farmer, and his wife Mary Mylwaye. The first son was alleged to have named after his godfather Francis Russell. Because of religious persecution during the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549, there the father obtained an appointment to minister the men in the Kings Navy. He was ordained deacon and was vicar of Upnor Church on the Medway. Drakes father apprenticed Francis to his neighbour, the master of a used for coastal trade transporting merchandise to France. The ship master was so satisfied with the young Drakes conduct that, being unmarried and childless at his death, Francis Drake married Mary Newman in 1569. She died 12 years later, in 1581, in 1585, Drake married Elizabeth Sydenham—born circa 1562, the only child of Sir George Sydenham, of Combe Sydenham, who was the High Sheriff of Somerset. After Drakes death, the widow Elizabeth eventually married Sir William Courtenay of Powderham. At age 23, Drake made his first voyage to the Americas, sailing with his cousin, Sir John Hawkins, on one of a fleet of ships owned by his relatives. In 1568 Drake was again with the Hawkins fleet when it was trapped by the Spaniards in the Mexican port of San Juan de Ulúa, following the defeat at San Juan de Ulúa, Drake vowed revenge. He made two voyages to the West Indies, in 1570 and 1571, of which little is known, in 1572, he embarked on his first major independent enterprise. He planned an attack on the Isthmus of Panama, known to the Spanish as Tierra Firme and the English as the Spanish Main
7.
Philip II of Spain
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Philip II of Spain, called the Prudent, was King of Spain, King of Portugal, King of Naples and Sicily, and jure uxoris King of England and Ireland. He was also Duke of Milan, from 1555, he was lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. Known in Spain as Felipe el Prudente, his empire included territories on every continent then known to Europeans, during his reign, Spain reached the height of its influence and power. This is sometimes called the Golden Age, the expression, the empire on which the sun never sets, was coined during Philips time to reflect the extent of his dominion. During Philips reign there were separate state bankruptcies in 1557,1560,1569,1575 and this was partly the cause of the declaration of independence that created the Dutch Republic in 1581. The Ambassador went on to say He dresses very tastefully, the culture and courtly life of Spain were an important influence in his early life. He was tutored by Juan Martínez Siliceo, the future Archbishop of Toledo, Philip displayed reasonable aptitude in arms and letters alike. Later he would study with more illustrious tutors, including the humanist Juan Cristóbal Calvete de Estrella, though Philip had good command over Latin, Spanish, and Portuguese, he never managed to equal his father, Charles V, as a polyglot. While Philip was also a German archduke of the House of Habsburg, Philip felt himself to be culturally Spanish, he had been born in Spain and raised in the Castilian court, his native tongue was Spanish, and he preferred to live in Spain. This would ultimately impede his succession to the imperial throne, in April 1528, when Philip was eleven months old, he received the oath of allegiance as heir to the crown from the Cortes of Castile. Philip was also close to his two sisters, María and Juana, and to his two pages, the Portuguese nobleman Rui Gomes da Silva and Luis de Requesens, the son of his governor Juan de Zúñiga. These men would serve Philip throughout their lives, as would Antonio Pérez, Philips martial training was undertaken by his governor, Juan de Zúñiga, a Castilian nobleman who served as the commendador mayor of Castile. The practical lessons in warfare were overseen by the Duke of Alba during the Italian Wars, Philip was present at the Siege of Perpignan in 1542 but did not see action as the Spanish army under Alba decisively defeated the besieging French forces under the Dauphin of France. On his way back to Castile, Philip received the oath of allegiance of the Aragonese Cortes at Monzón. The king-emperors interactions with his son during his stay in Spain convinced him of Philips precocity in statesmanship, Philip, who had previously been made the Duke of Milan in 1540, began governing the most extensive empire in the world at the young age of sixteen. Charles left Philip with experienced advisors—notably the secretary Francisco de los Cobos, Philip was also left with extensive written instructions that emphasised piety, patience, modesty, and distrust. These principles of Charles were gradually assimilated by his son, who would grow up to become grave, self-possessed, personally, Philip spoke softly and had an icy self-mastery, in the words of one of his ministers, he had a smile that cut like a sword. After living in the Netherlands in the years of his reign
8.
Parador
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A parador, in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, is a kind of luxury hotel, usually located in a converted historic building such as a monastery or castle. Parar means to stop, halt or stay, Paradores de Turismo de España is a chain of Spanish luxury hotels. The company was founded by Alfonso XIII as a means to promote tourism in Spain and this state-run business has been profitable. The hotels are located in adapted castles, palaces, fortresses, convents, monasteries. They add to the attractions of heritage tourism and provide uses for historic buildings. The Hostal de los Reyes Catolicos in Santiago de Compostela is considered to be one of the oldest continuously operating hotels in the world and they are located from Galicia in the north-west through Catalonia to Andalusia in the south of Spain, and the Canary Islands. Prices usually vary according to category, room, region and season, Paradors are classified as Esentia - monumental and historic hotels, Civia - urban hotels, and Naturia - hotels close to the coast and nature. Ninety-four Paradors are located in Spain and one, Casa da Ínsua, the Portuguese equivalent, the Pousadas de Portugal, were founded in 1942, after the Spanish model. They are frequented by guests looking to enjoy the local customs, often called country inns in English, paradores in Puerto Rico are usually located in rural areas. To be part of the Paradores de Puerto Rico Program, the hotel must meet standards set by the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. These include being located outside the San Juan metro area, having 15 to 75 rooms, having a restaurant on site or nearby, and being family-owned and operated
