Banana Wars
The Banana Wars were occupations, police actions, interventions on the part of the United States in Central America and the Caribbean between the end of the Spanish–American War in 1898 and the inception of the Good Neighbor Policy in 1934. These military interventions were most carried out by the United States Marine Corps, which developed a manual, The Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars based on its experiences. On occasion, the Navy provided gunfire support and Army troops were used. With the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded control of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the United States. Thereafter, the United States conducted military interventions in Cuba, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic; the series of conflicts ended with the withdrawal of troops from Haiti in 1934 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt; the term was popularized in 1983 by writer Lester D. Langley. Langley wrote several books on Latin American history and American interactions including The United States and the Caribbean, 1900–1970 and The Banana Wars: An Inner History of American Empire, 1900-1934.
His book on the Banana Wars encompasses the United States tropical empire that overtook the western hemisphere spanning both of the Roosevelt presidencies. The term was popularized through this writing which portrayed the United States as a police force, sent to reconcile warring tropical countries, lawless societies and corrupt politicians, establishing a reign over tropical trade; the Banana Wars began with injustices, lawless societies and labor abuse in Latin America. Banana workers began. Warring tropical countries stemmed from maltreatment and abusive working conditions gave rise to one of the earliest and most militant labor movements in early Latin America; when high import duties on bananas were announced in 1913, consumers and the banana industry protested that it was the most consumed fruit among the urban poor, thus contrasting it with the aristocratic traditions associated with other tropical commodities such as tea and chocolate. The discourse and corruption facing Latin American people and governments is what prompted the United States influence.
U. S. motivations for these conflicts were economic and military. The term "Banana Wars" was coined much to cast the motivations for these interventions as exclusively the preservation of petty U. S. commercial interests in the region. Most prominently, the US was advancing its economic and military interests to maintain its sphere of influence and securing the Panama Canal which it had built to promote global trade and to project its own naval power. US companies such as the United Fruit Company had financial stakes in the production of bananas, sugar cane, other commodities throughout the Caribbean, Central America and northern South America. Panama: U. S. interventions in the isthmus go back to the 1846 Mallarino–Bidlack Treaty and intensified after the so-called Watermelon War of 1856. In 1885 US military intervention gained a mandate with the construction of the Panama Canal; the building process collapsed in bankruptcy and disease in 1889, but resumed in the 20th century. In 1903, Panama seceded from the Republic of Colombia, backed by the U.
S. government, during the Thousand Days' War. The Panama Canal was under construction by and the Panama Canal Zone, under United States sovereignty, was created; the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty to negotiate the Nicaragua canal with Ireland. And was to ensure no one would have control over the canal and protect the canal, but the death of Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in 1899 allowed the US government to continue to construct and to regulate an isthmian waterway. The new Hay–Pauncefote Treaty allowed the US full control and management of the canal. Spanish–American War: U. S. forces seized Cuba and Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898. The end of the Spanish–American War led to the start of Banana Wars. Cuba: In December 1899 US president William McKinley deemed Leonard Wood to have supreme power in Cuba; the U. S. liberated Cubans from the Spanish Empire. Occupied by the U. S. from 1898 to 1902 under military governor Leonard Wood, again from 1906 to 1909, 1912, 1917 to 1922. In 1903 the US took a permanent lease on the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
Dominican Republic: Action in 1903, 1904, 1914. S. from 1916 to 1924. Nicaragua: Occupied by the U. S. continuously from 1912 to 1933, after intermittent landings and naval bombardments in the prior decades. The U. S. had troops in Nicaragua to prevent its leaders from creating conflict within their country. The bluejackets and marines were able to do so o.ofor about 15 years. The U. S. wanted to teach Nicaragua to elect "good men". Mexico: U. S. military involvements with Mexico in this period had the same general commercial and political causes, but stand as a special case. The Americans conducted the Border War with Mexico from 1910-1919 for additional reasons: to control the flow of immigrants and refugees from revolutionary Mexico, to counter rebel raids into U. S. territory. The 1914 U. S. occupation of Veracruz, was an exercise of armed influence, not an issue of border integrity. S. President Woodrow Wilson refused to recognize. In the years prior to World War I, the U. S. was alert to the regional b
Germany
Germany the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north and the Czech Republic to the east and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to the west. Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,386 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a decentralized country, its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport. Germany's largest urban area is the Ruhr, with its main centres of Essen; the country's other major cities are Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Bremen and Nuremberg. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity.
A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815; the German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic; the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, the annexation of Austria, World War II, the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, Austria was re-established as an independent country and two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American and French occupation zones, East Germany, formed from the Soviet occupation zone.
Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Today, the sovereign state of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor, it is a great power with a strong economy. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods; as a developed country with a high standard of living, it upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection, a tuition-free university education. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993, it is part of the Schengen Area and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, the OECD. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential and successful artists, musicians, film people, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
Germany has a large number of World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world. The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine; the German term Deutschland diutisciu land is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular", derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons originates; the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m length were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first non-modern human fossil was discovered.
The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm; the finds included 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man, the oldest uncontested figurative art discovered, the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, the oldest uncontested human figurative art discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, it is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme. The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps referred to as the United States Marines or U. S. Marines, is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations with the United States Navy as well as the Army and Air Force; the U. S. Marine Corps is one of the four armed service branches in the U. S. Department of Defense and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States; the Marine Corps has been a component of the U. S. Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834, working with naval forces; the USMC operates installations on land and aboard sea-going amphibious warfare ships around the world. Additionally, several of the Marines' tactical aviation squadrons Marine Fighter Attack squadrons, are embedded in Navy carrier air wings and operate from the aircraft carriers; the history of the Marine Corps began when two battalions of Continental Marines were formed on 10 November 1775 in Philadelphia as a service branch of infantry troops capable of fighting both at sea and on shore.
In the Pacific theater of World War II the Corps took the lead in a massive campaign of amphibious warfare, advancing from island to island. As of 2017, the USMC has around some 38,500 personnel in reserve, it is the smallest U. S. military service within the DoD. As outlined in 10 U. S. C. § 5063 and as introduced under the National Security Act of 1947, three primary areas of responsibility for the Marine Corps are: Seizure or defense of advanced naval bases and other land operations to support naval campaigns. This last clause derives from similar language in the Congressional acts "For the Better Organization of the Marine Corps" of 1834, "Establishing and Organizing a Marine Corps" of 1798. In 1951, the House of Representatives' Armed Services Committee called the clause "one of the most important statutory – and traditional – functions of the Marine Corps", it noted that the Corps has more than not performed actions of a non-naval nature, including its famous actions in Tripoli, the War of 1812, numerous counter-insurgency and occupational duties, World War I, the Korean War.
While these actions are not described as support of naval campaigns nor as amphibious warfare, their common thread is that they are of an expeditionary nature, using the mobility of the Navy to provide timely intervention in foreign affairs on behalf of American interests. The Marine Band, dubbed the "President's Own" by Thomas Jefferson, provides music for state functions at the White House. Marines from Ceremonial Companies A & B, quartered in Marine Barracks, Washington, D. C. guard presidential retreats, including Camp David, the Marines of the Executive Flight Detachment of HMX-1 provide helicopter transport to the President and Vice President, with the radio call signs "Marine One" and "Marine Two", respectively. The Executive Flight Detachment provides helicopter transport to Cabinet members and other VIPs. By authority of the 1946 Foreign Service Act, the Marine Security Guards of the Marine Embassy Security Command provide security for American embassies and consulates at more than 140 posts worldwide.
The relationship between the Department of State and the U. S. Marine Corps is nearly as old as the corps itself. For over 200 years, Marines have served at the request of various Secretaries of State. After World War II, an alert, disciplined force was needed to protect American embassies and legations throughout the world. In 1947, a proposal was made that the Department of Defense furnish Marine Corps personnel for Foreign Service guard duty under the provisions of the Foreign Service Act of 1946. A formal Memorandum of Agreement was signed between the Department of State and the Secretary of the Navy on 15 December 1948, 83 Marines were deployed to overseas missions. During the first year of the MSG program, 36 detachments were deployed worldwide; the Marine Corps was founded to serve as an infantry unit aboard naval vessels and was responsible for the security of the ship and its crew by conducting offensive and defensive combat during boarding actions and defending the ship's officers from mutiny.
Continental Marines manned raiding parties, both at ashore. America's first amphibious assault landing occurred early in the Revolutionary War on 3 March 1776 as the Marines gained control of Fort Montague and Fort Nassau, a British ammunition depot and naval port in New Providence, the Bahamas; the role of the Marine Corps has expanded since then. The Advanced Base Doctrine of the early 20th century codified their combat duties ashore, outlining the use of Marines in the seizure of bases and other duties on land to support naval campaigns. Throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, Marine detachments served aboard Navy cruisers and aircraft carriers. Marine detachments served in their traditional duties as a ship's landing force, manning the ship's weapons and providing shipboard security. Marine detachments were augmented by members of the ship's company for landing parties, such as in the First Sumatran Expedition of 1832, continuing in the Caribbean and Mexican campaigns of the early 20th centuries.
Mari
Maryland
Maryland is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, the District of Columbia to its south and west. The state's largest city is Baltimore, its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the Chesapeake Bay State, it is named after the English queen Henrietta Maria, known in England as Queen Mary. Sixteen of Maryland's twenty-three counties border the tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay estuary and its many tributaries, which combined total more than 4,000 miles of shoreline. Although one of the smallest states in the U. S. it features a variety of climates and topographical features that have earned it the moniker of America in Miniature. In a similar vein, Maryland's geography and history combines elements of the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic regions of the country. One of the original Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain, Maryland was founded by George Calvert, a Catholic convert who sought to provide a religious haven for Catholics persecuted in England.
In 1632, Charles I of England granted Calvert a colonial charter, naming the colony after his wife, Queen Mary. Unlike the Pilgrims and Puritans, who enforced religious conformity in their settlements, Calvert envisioned a colony where people of different religious sects would coexist under the principle of toleration. Accordingly, in 1649 the Maryland General Assembly passed an Act Concerning Religion, which enshrined this principle by penalizing anyone who "reproached" a fellow Marylander based on religious affiliation. Religious strife was common in the early years, Catholics remained a minority, albeit in greater numbers than in any other English colony. Maryland's early settlements and population centers clustered around rivers and other waterways that empty into the Chesapeake Bay, its economy was plantation-based, centered on the cultivation of tobacco. The need for cheap labor led to a rapid expansion of indentured servants, penal labor, African slaves. In 1760, Maryland's current boundaries took form following the settlement of a long-running border dispute with Pennsylvania.
Maryland was an active participant in the events leading up to the American Revolution, by 1776 its delegates signed the Declaration of Independence. Many of its citizens subsequently played key military roles in the war. In 1790, the state ceded land for the establishment of the U. S. capital of Washington, D. C. Although a slave state, Maryland remained in the Union during the U. S. Civil War, its strategic location giving it a significant role in the conflict. After the war, Maryland took part in the Industrial Revolution, driven by its seaports, railroad networks, mass immigration from Europe. Since the Second World War, the state's population has grown to six million residents, it is among the most densely populated states in the nation; as of 2015, Maryland had the highest median household income of any state, owing in large part to its close proximity to Washington, D. C. and a diversified economy spanning manufacturing, higher education, biotechnology. Maryland has been ranked as one of the best governed states in the country.
The state's central role in American history is reflected by its hosting of some of the highest numbers of historic landmarks per capita. Maryland is comparable in overall area with Belgium, it is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next smaller state. The next larger state, its neighbor West Virginia, is twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature, it ranges from sandy dunes dotted with seagrass in the east, to low marshlands teeming with wildlife and large bald cypress near the Chesapeake Bay, to rolling hills of oak forests in the Piedmont Region, pine groves in the Maryland mountains to the west. Maryland is bounded on its north by Pennsylvania, on its west by West Virginia, on its east by Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean, on its south, across the Potomac River, by West Virginia and Virginia; the mid-portion of this border is interrupted by District of Columbia, which sits on land, part of Montgomery and Prince George's counties and including the town of Georgetown, Maryland.
This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia.. The Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Most of the state's waterways are part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, with the exceptions of a tiny portion of extreme western Garrett County, the eastern half of Worcester County, a small portion of the state's northeast corner. So prominent is the Chesapeake in Maryland's geography and economic life that there has been periodic agitation to change the state's official nickname to the "Bay State", a nickname, used by Massachusetts for decades; the highest point in Maryland, with an elevation of 3,360 feet, is Hoye Crest on Backbone Mountain, in the southwest corner of Garrett County, near the bo
Italian Army
The Italian Army is the land-based component of the Italian Armed Forces of the Italian Republic. The army's history dates back to the unification of Italy in the 1860s; the army fought in colonial engagements in China, Northern Italy against the Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I, Abyssinia before World War II and in World War II in Albania, North Africa and Italy itself. During the Cold War, the army prepared itself to defend against a Warsaw Pact invasion from the east. Since the end of the Cold War, the army has seen extensive peacekeeping service and combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank and among its aircraft the Mangusta attack helicopter deployed in UN missions. The headquarters of the Army General Staff are located in Rome, at the back of the Presidential Palace; the army is an all-volunteer force of active-duty personnel. The Italian Army originated as the Royal Army which dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy following the seizure of the Papal States and the unification of Italy.
In 1861, under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy was invited to take the throne and of the newly created kingdom. Italian expeditions were dispatched to China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and to Libya during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912; the Italian Royal Army's first real taste of modern warfare was during World War I. Most of the actions were fought in northern Italy and the Royal Army suffered many casualties; this included over 700,000 dead. In particular, the frequency of the offensives in which Italian soldiers participated between May 1915 and August 1917, one every three months, was higher than demanded by the armies on the Western Front. Italian discipline was harsher, with punishments for infractions of duty of a severity not known in the German and British armies. During the Interwar Years the Royal Army participated in the Italian Invasion of Ethiopia, provided men and materials during the Spanish Civil War to fight in the Corps of Volunteer Troops, launched the Italian invasion of Albania.
On paper, the Royal Army was one of the largest ground forces in World War II, though in reality it could not field the numbers claimed, it was one of the pioneers in the use of paratroopers. Due to their smaller size, many Italian divisions were reinforced by an Assault Group of two battalions of Blackshirts. Reports of Italian military prowess in the Second World War were always, dismissive; this perception was the result of disastrous Italian offensives against Egypt and the performance of the army in the Greco-Italian War. Both campaigns were executed inadequately; the Italian 10th Army advanced into Egypt but surrendered after being pushed back into central Libya and all destroyed by a force one fifth its size in the British three-month campaign of Operation Compass. Incompetent military leadership was aggravated by the Italian military's equipment, which predominantly dated back to the First World War and was not up to the standard of either the Allied or the German armies. Italian'medium' M11, M13, M14 and M15 tanks were at a marked disadvantage against the comparatively armed American Sherman tanks, for example.
More crucially, Italy lacked suitable quantities of equipment of all kinds and the Italian high command did not take necessary steps to plan for possible setbacks on the battlefield, or for proper logistical support to its field armies. There were too few anti-aircraft weapons, obsolete anti-tank guns, too few trucks; the Italian Expeditionary Corps in Russia fought under General Giovanni Messe, who acknowledged the limitations of his Corps in material and equipment and thus was relieved of his command on November 1, 1942. When the Soviet offensive Operation Saturn began on December 12, 1942 the Italian 8th Army was crushed. Only about a third of its troops managed to escape the Soviet cauldron, most notably from the three Alpini Divisions Tridentina and Cuneense, which fought stubbornly and to their total annihilation to escape the Soviet encirclement. In North Africa, the Italian 132 Armored Division Ariete and the 185 Airborne Division Folgore fought to total annihilation at the Second Battle of El Alamein.
Although the battle was lost, the determined resistance of the Italian soldiers at the Battle of Keren in East Africa is still commemorated today by the Italian military. After the Axis defeat in Tunisia the morale of the Italian troops dropped and when the Allies landed in Sicily on July 10, 1943 most Italian Coastal divisions dissolved; the sagging morale led to the overthrow of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy 15 days later. In September 1943, Italy made an armistice with the Allies and split into the Italian Social Republic – a puppet state of Germany – in the north and that of the Badoglio government in the south; the Italian Co-Belligerent Army was the army of the Italian royalist forces fighting on the side of the Allies in southern Italy after the Allied armistice with Italy in September 1943. The Italian soldiers fighting in this army no longer fought for Benito Mussolini as their allegiance was to King Victor Emmanuel and to Marshal of Italy Pietro Badoglio, the men who ousted Mussolini.
The kingdom was replaced by a Republic in June 1946 and the Royal Army changed its name to become the Italian Army. The army fielded five infantry divisions, create
Nicaragua
Nicaragua the Republic of Nicaragua, is the largest country in the Central American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the northwest, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Managua is the country's capital and largest city and is the third-largest city in Central America, behind Tegucigalpa and Guatemala City; the multi-ethnic population of six million includes people of indigenous, European and Asian heritage. The main language is Spanish. Indigenous tribes on the Mosquito Coast speak English. Inhabited by various indigenous cultures since ancient times, the Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century. Nicaragua gained independence from Spain in 1821; the Mosquito Coast followed a different historical path, with the English colonizing it in the 17th century and coming under the British rule, as well as some minor Spanish interludes in the 19th century. It became an autonomous territory of Nicaragua in 1860 and the northernmost part of it was transferred to Honduras in 1960.
Since its independence, Nicaragua has undergone periods of political unrest, dictatorship and fiscal crisis, leading to the Nicaraguan Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s and the Contra War of the 1980s. The mixture of cultural traditions has generated substantial diversity in folklore, cuisine and literature the latter given the literary contributions of Nicaraguan poets and writers, such as Rubén Darío. Known as the "land of lakes and volcanoes", Nicaragua is home to the second-largest rainforest of the Americas; the country has set a goal of 90% renewable energy by the year 2020. The biological diversity, warm tropical climate and active volcanoes make Nicaragua an popular tourist destination. There are two prevailing theories on; the first is that the name was coined by Spanish colonists based on the name Nicarao, the chieftain or cacique of a powerful indigenous tribe encountered by the Spanish conquistador Gil González Dávila during his entry into southwestern Nicaragua in 1522. This theory holds that the name Nicaragua was formed from Nicarao and agua, to reference the fact that there are two large lakes and several other bodies of water within the country.
However, as of 2002, it was determined that the cacique's real name was Macuilmiquiztli, which meant "Five Deaths" in the Nahuatl language, rather than Nicarao. The second theory is that the country's name comes from any of the following Nahuatl words: nic-anahuac, which meant "Anahuac reached this far", or "the Nahuas came this far", or "those who come from Anahuac came this far". Paleo-Americans first inhabited what is now known as Nicaragua as far back as 12,000 BCE. In pre-Columbian times, Nicaragua's indigenous people were part of the Intermediate Area, between the Mesoamerican and Andean cultural regions, within the influence of the Isthmo-Colombian area. Nicaragua's central region and its Caribbean coast were inhabited by Macro-Chibchan language ethnic groups, they had coalesced in Central America and migrated to present-day northern Colombia and nearby areas. They lived a life based on hunting and gathering, as well as fishing, performing slash-and-burn agriculture. At the end of the 15th century, western Nicaragua was inhabited by several different indigenous peoples related by culture to the Mesoamerican civilizations of the Aztec and Maya, by language to the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area.
The Chorotegas were Mangue language ethnic groups who had arrived in Nicaragua from what is now the Mexican state of Chiapas sometime around 800 CE. The Pipil-Nicarao people were a branch of Nahuas who spoke the Nahuat dialect, like the Chorotegas, they too had come from Chiapas to Nicaragua in 1200 CE. Prior to that, the Pipil-Nicaraos had been associated with the Toltec civilization. Both the Chorotegas and the Pipil-Nicaraos were from Mexico's Cholula valley, had migrated southward. Additionally, there were trade-related colonies in Nicaragua, set up by the Aztecs starting in the 14th century. In 1502, on his fourth voyage, Christopher Columbus became the first European known to have reached what is now Nicaragua as he sailed southeast toward the Isthmus of Panama. Columbus explored the Mosquito Coast on the Atlantic side of Nicaragua but did not encounter any indigenous people. 20 years the Spaniards returned to Nicaragua, this time to its southwestern part. The first attempt to conquer Nicaragua was by the conquistador Gil González Dávila, who had arrived in Panama in January 1520.
In 1522, González Dávila ventured into the area that became known as the Rivas Department of Nicaragua. It was there that he encountered an indigenous Nahua tribe led by a chieftain named Macuilmiquiztli, whose name has sometimes been erroneously referred to as "Nicarao" or "Nicaragua". At the time, the tribe's capital city was called Quauhcapolca. González Dávila had brought along two indigenous interpreters, taught the Spanish language, thus he was able to have a discourse with Macuilmiquiztli. After exploring and gathering gold in the fertile western valleys, González Dávila and his men were attacked and driven off by the Chorotega, led by the chieftain Diriangen; the Spanish attempted to convert the tribes to Christianity. The first Spanish permanent settlements were founded in 1524; that year, the conquistador
USS Wyoming (BB-32)
USS Wyoming was the lead ship of her class of dreadnought battleships and was the third ship of the United States Navy named Wyoming, although she was only the second named in honor of the 44th state. Wyoming was laid down at the William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia in February 1910, was launched in May 1911, was completed in September 1912, she was capable of a top speed of 20.5 kn. During the First World War, she was part of the Battleship Division Nine, attached to the British Grand Fleet as the 6th Battle Squadron. During the war, she was tasked with patrolling in the North Sea and escorting convoys to Norway, she served in both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets throughout the 1920s, in 1931–1932, she was converted into a training ship according to the terms of the London Naval Treaty of 1930. Wyoming served as a training ship throughout the 1930s, in November 1941, she became a gunnery ship, she operated in the Chesapeake Bay area, which earned her the nickname "Chesapeake Raider". In this capacity, she trained some 35,000 gunners for the hugely expanded US Navy during World War II.
She continued in this duty until 1947, when she was decommissioned on 1 August and subsequently sold for scrap. Wyoming had a beam of 93 ft 3 in and a draft of 28 ft 6 in, she up to 27,243 long tons at full combat load. The ship was powered by four-shaft Parsons steam turbines and twelve coal-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers rated at 28,000 shp, generating a top speed of 20.5 kn. The ship had a cruising range of 8,000 nmi at a speed of 10 kn; the ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 12-inch/50 caliber Mark 7 guns in six Mark 9 twin gun turrets on the centerline, two of which were placed in a superfiring pair forward. The other four turrets were placed aft of the superstructure in two superfiring pairs; the secondary battery consisted of twenty-one 5-inch /51 caliber guns mounted in casemates along the side of the hull. The main armored belt was 11 in thick; the conning tower had 11.5 in thick sides. In 1925, Wyoming was modernized in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, her displacement increased to 26,066 long tons standard and 30,610 long tons full load.
Her beam was widened to 106 ft from the installation of anti-torpedo bulges, draft increased to 29 ft 11.75 in. Her twelve coal-fired boilers were replaced with four White-Forster oil-fired boilers, intended for the ships cancelled under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty; the ship's deck armor was strengthened by the addition of 3.5 in of armor to the second deck between the end barbettes, plus 1.75 in of armor on the third deck on the bow and stern. The deck armor over the engines and boilers was increased by 0.75 in and 1.25 respectively. Five of the 5-inch guns were removed and eight 3-inch /50 caliber anti-aircraft guns were installed; the mainmast was removed to provide space for an aircraft catapult mounted on the Number 3 turret amidships. Wyoming was laid down at the William Cramp & Sons shipyard in Philadelphia on 9 February 1910, was launched on 25 May 1911, she was completed a year and four months on 25 September 1912. After her commissioning, the final fitting-out work was completed at the New York Navy Yard over the next three months.
She proceeded to join the rest of the fleet at Hampton Roads on 30 December, where she became the flagship of Rear Admiral Charles J. Badger, the commander of the Atlantic Fleet. Wyoming left Hampton Roads on 6 January 1913, she visited the Panama Canal, nearing completion, participated in fleet exercises off Cuba. The ship was back in port in Chesapeake Bay on 4 March. Wyoming took part in gunnery drills off the Virginia Capes, on 18 April, entered drydock at the New York Navy Yard for some repairs, which lasted until 7 May, she joined the rest of the fleet for maneuvers off Block Island. During the maneuvers, the ship's machinery proved troublesome, which necessitated repairs at Newport from 9–19 May. At the end of the month, she was in New York harbor, to participate in the ceremonies for the dedication of the monument to the armored cruiser Maine, destroyed in Havana harbor on 15 February 1898. On 4 June, Wyoming steamed to Annapolis, where she took on a crew of naval cadets from the Naval Academy for a summer midshipman cruise.
After returning the cadets to Annapolis on 24–25 August, Wyoming took part in gunnery and torpedo training over the next few weeks. On 16 September, she returned to New York for repairs, she ran full–power sea trials before proceeding to the Virginia Capes, where she participated in another round of fleet maneuvers. Next, she departed for a European goodwill cruise on 26 October, she toured the Mediterranean Sea, stopping in Valletta, Naples and Villefranche, France. She departed France on 30 November, arrived in New York on 15 December. There, she went into dock at the New York Navy Yard for periodic repairs, which lasted until January 1914. On the 6th, Wyoming left for Hampton Roads, where she took on coal in preparation for the annual fleet maneuvers in the Caribbean; the exercises lasted from 26 January to 15 March, the fleet was based out of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Wyoming and the
United States
United States Marine Corps
Lieutenant General
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