The Cantino planisphere or Cantino world map is a manuscript Portuguese world map preserved at the Biblioteca Estense in Modena, Italy. It is named after Alberto Cantino, an agent for the Duke of Ferrara, who smuggled it from Portugal to Italy in 1502, it measures 220 x 105 cm. This planisphere is the earliest surviving map showing Portuguese geographic discoveries in the east and west, is notable for portraying a fragmentary record of the Brazilian coast, which the Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral explored in 1500, for depicting the African coast of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans with a remarkable accuracy and detail. In the beginning of the 16th century, Lisbon was a buzzing metropolis where people from diverse backgrounds came in search of work, glory or fortune. There were many undercover agents looking for the secrets brought by the Portuguese voyages to remote lands. Among them was Alberto Cantino, sent to Portugal by Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, with the formal intention of horse trading, while secretly collecting information on Portuguese Discoveries.

Cantino's diligence is shown in one of his five remaining letters to the Duke, dated 17 October 1501, where he describes, amongst other things, hearing Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real detailing his latest voyage to Newfoundland to King Manuel I. A popular theory, introduced in the earliest studies of the map, suggests that the Cantino Planisphere was ordered to an official Portuguese mapmaker, who made a copy of the royal cartographic pattern, the so-called Padrão Real, kept in the Armazéns da Índia. However, there is no historical evidence that such order was made and the theory is weakened by the presence of numerous mistakes. One would expect a made copy of an official standard, if it existed in Portugal at that time, would be accurate. A more plausible explanation is that the map was surreptitiously acquired shortly after it was made for some nobleman or official client. From a letter sent by Cantino to his patron, the Duke of Ferrara, on 19 November 1502, we know that he paid 12 golden ducats for it, a considerable amount for the time.

An Italian inscription in the back of the map reads: Carta de navigar per le Isole nouam trovate in le parte de India: dono Alberto Cantino al S. Duca Hercole, which translates as'Navigational chart of the islands recently... in part of the Indies: from Alberto Cantino to Duke Hercole'. While it enlightened the Italians to many new territories yet unknown to them, it was obsolete within months due to subsequent mapping voyages by the Portuguese, its importance to the Portuguese–Italian trade relations should not be understated. It supplied great details of the Indian Ocean. A peninsula to the northeast of Cuba has been identified by some others as Florida while others argue that it was intended to represent part of China, Cuba itself, or the Yucatan Peninsula; the geographical information given on the Cantino map was copied into the Italian-made Canerio map shortly after the Cantino map arrived in Italy and the Canerio, in turn, became the primary source for the design of the newly discovered western lands on the influential wall map of the world produced by Martin Waldseemüller in 1507 under the auspices of Rene, Duke of Lorraine.

This old map, made-up by 6 glued parchment sheets, was kept in the Ducal Library, for about 90 years, until Pope Clement VIII transferred it to another palace in Modena, Italy. More than two centuries in 1859, the palace was ransacked and the Cantino Map lost, it was found by Giuseppe Boni, Director of the Biblioteca Estense, in that same year, in a butcher's store in Modena. The Cantino world map can be found in Modena, Italy, at the Biblioteca Estense; the Cantino planisphere is the earliest extant example of the so-called latitude chart, developed following the introduction of astronomical navigation, during the second half of the fifteenth century. Contrarily to the portolan charts of the Mediterranean, which were constructed on the basis of magnetic courses and estimated distances between places, in the latitude chart places were represented according to their latitudes. In the Cantino planisphere, latitudes were incorporated only in the coasts of Africa and India, while Europe and the Caribbean Sea continued to be represented according to the portolan-chart model ).

The construction of the rhumb line system in the Cantino planisphere uses two circles: the western circle is centered on the Cape Vert Islands, the eastern circle is centered in India. The circumference of each circle is marked with sixteen spaced points, from which radiate the 32 classic rhumbs: 0°, 11 1/4°, 22 1/2°, 33 3/4°, etc; the western and eastern outer circles are tangent to each other at a large wind-rose in central Africa, with a fleur-de-lis indicating North. This dense rhumb-line mesh was used in navigation as a reference, for reading and marking directions between places. Six scale bars graduated in Iberian leagues, with a variable number of sections, are distributed over the chart's area; these were used to measure distances between places. Illustrations elaborate. Two cities are grandly depicted - Venice and Jerusalem. There is an elaborate depiction of the Portuguese castle of São Jorge da Mina, flanked by two African towns. Other illustrations include a lion-shaped mountain representing the Sierra Leone mountain

Philip Ramos is the Assembly member for the 6th District of the New York Assembly. He is a Democrat; the district includes portions of the town of Islip, including Bay Shore, Central Islip and Islandia in Suffolk County on Long Island Ramos is the son of a correction officer and a registered nurse. His family was one of the first Hispanic families to move to Brentwood in 1957 and has lived in the community for the past 50 years, raising his two children, he graduated from Brentwood High School in 1974, went to work as a therapy aide at the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center. He became an emergency medical technician and received a commendation for delivering a baby boy on the side of the Southern State Parkway. Ramos followed in the footsteps of his father by going into law enforcement; as a Suffolk County Police Officer, he joined with other Latino police officers in founding the Suffolk County Police Hispanic Society and was elected president of the society in 1993. He worked eight years in the narcotics unit as an undercover officer.

Promoted to detective in 1987, Ramos was assigned to the community. Ramos retired from the Suffolk County Police Department, where he served from 1979 to 1999. In 2002, Ramos opted to run for the New York Assembly to succeed Republican Robert Wertz, retiring after thirty years to seek a seat in the New York Senate. In a close race, he defeated Republican Philip Goglas 53% to 47%. Since he has been elected with at least 65% of the vote, his first campaign was won by Jeanine Vargas. The New York Assembly: Assemblyman Philip Ramos Project Vote Smart Interest group ratings

Henry Manni is a Finnish athlete and paracanoeist who has competed and medaled in both fields at World Championship level. In Paracanoeing he won a bronze medal in the K-1 200 m TA event at the 2010 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Poznań. Manni switched to athletics as a wheelchair sprinter in the T34 classification. In 2013 he won a bronze in the World Championships in the 200m event, following this with four golds in the 2014 European Championships and three further World championship medals in 2015. Manni was born in Lahti, Finland in 1992, he was born with paraparesis. He obtained a degree in physical education from Pajulahti Sports Institute in Nastola, his younger brother Tuomas is a para-athlete, competing in triathlon events. Manni was inspired to take up disability sport in 2004 after watching Finland's Leo-Pekka Tahti win gold at the Summer Paralympics in Athens; that year, at the age of ten, Manni took up paracanoeing. In 2010 he achieved his best paracanoe result when he won a bronze medal in the K-1 200 m TA event at the 2010 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Poznań, Poland.

After the 2010 Canoe World Championships Manni switched to track athletics and was classified as a T34 athlete. Specialising in sprint events he was selected for the Finland team at the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships in Lyon. There he entered four events, the 200m, 400m and 800m sprints, he managed a podium finish in the 200m. The next year he travelled to Swansea where he competed in the 2014 IPC Athletics European Championships. Without the competition of international athletes such as Tunisia's Walid Ktila and Australia's Rheed McCracken, Manni dominated the field winning four gold medals in all four sprint events. In the build up to the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio, Manni again represented Finland in the IPC World Championships, this time in Doha, he again entered all four sprint events in the T34 classification, improved on all four times from his previous World Championship. In Doha he won a silver in the bronze in both the 200m and 800m events. 2010 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships men's K-1 200 m TA results.

- accessed 20 August 2010