General Gregor MacGregor was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian government bonds and land certificates, while about 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822–23 to find only an untouched jungle; more than half of them died. Seen as a contributory factor to the "Panic of 1825", MacGregor's Poyais scheme has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history.

The Siege of Cartagena (1815) was a successful 105-day Spanish siege by combined naval and ground forces under command of General Pablo Morillo, of the Colombian city and fortress of Cartagena de Indias, defended by Republican forces under the leadership of Manuel del Castillo y Rada and José Francisco Bermúdez, between August and December 1815.