Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 5, 1775 and signed on July 8 in a final attempt to avoid war between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies in America. The Congress had authorized the invasion of Canada more than a week earlier, but the petition affirmed American loyalty to Great Britain and beseeched King George III to prevent further conflict, it was followed by the July 6 Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, which made its success unlikely in London. In August 1775, the colonies were formally declared to be in rebellion by the Proclamation of Rebellion, the petition was rejected by Great Britain—even though King George had refused to read it before declaring the colonists traitors; the Second Continental Congress convened in May 1775, most delegates followed John Dickinson in his quest to reconcile with King George. However, a rather small group of delegates led by John Adams believed that war was inevitable, they decided that the wisest course of action was to remain quiet and wait for the opportune time to rally the people.
This allowed his followers to pursue their own course for reconciliation. Dickinson was the primary author of the petition, though Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, John Rutledge, Thomas Johnson served on the drafting committee. Dickinson claimed that the colonies did not want independence but wanted more equitable trade and tax regulations, he suggested that the King devise a plan to settle trade disputes and give the colonists either free trade and taxes equal to those levied on the people of Great Britain or strict trade regulation in lieu of taxes. The introductory paragraph of the letter named twelve of all except Georgia; the letter was approved on July 5 and signed by John Hancock, President of the Second Congress, by representatives of the named twelve colonies. It was sent to London on July 1775 in the care of Richard Penn and Arthur Lee. Dickinson hoped that news of the Battles of Lexington and Concord combined with the "humble petition" would persuade the King to respond with a counter-proposal or open negotiations.
Adams wrote to a friend that the petition served no purpose, that war was inevitable, that the colonies should have raised a navy and taken British officials prisoner. The letter was intercepted by British officials and news of its contents reached Great Britain at about the same time as the petition itself. British advocates of a military response used Adams' letter to claim that the petition itself was insincere. Penn and Lee provided a copy of the petition to colonial secretary Lord Dartmouth on August 21, followed with the original on September 1, they reported back on September 2: "we were told that as his Majesty did not receive it on the throne, no answer would be given." The King had issued the Proclamation of Rebellion on August 23 in response to news of the Battle of Bunker Hill, declaring the American colonies to be in a state of rebellion and ordering "all Our officers… and all Our obedient and loyal subjects, to use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion".
The hostilities which Adams had foreseen undercut the petition, the King had answered it before it reached him. The King's refusal to consider the petition gave Adams and others the opportunity to push for independence, it characterized the King as intransigent and uninterested in addressing the colonists' grievances, it polarized the issue in the minds of many colonists, who realized that the choice from that point forward was between complete independence and complete submission to British rule, a realization crystallized a few months in Thomas Paine's read pamphlet Common Sense. Works related to Olive Branch Petition at Wikisource
Thomas Preston (British Army officer)
Thomas Preston was a British officer, a captain who served in Boston in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He commanded troops in the Boston Massacre in 1770 and was tried for murder. Historians have never settled. Preston was from Ireland. Thomas Preston was an officer of the 29th Regiment of Foot, part of the British garrison in Boston under the overall command of Thomas Gage, he was present at the Boston Massacre on 5 March 1770, when British troops fired on colonists of the city, after an aggressive mob had confronted the troops and thrown snowballs and rocks at them. Charges were brought against him and other soldiers, but he was acquitted in a trial held in Boston, Massachusetts. Future United States President John Adams was his attorney, it is still unknown. Two of his men, Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy, were found guilty of manslaughter, they "prayed clergy" to avoid the death sentence. Instead, they were branded on the thumb with the letter "M" for murder. Captain Preston was found not guilty.
After his trial, Preston retired from the army. He settled in Ireland. Adams recalled seeing him in London in the 1780s, when Adams was serving there as US Minister to Britain; the communities of East Preston and North Preston, Nova Scotia may have been named for him. In the 2008 American miniseries, John Adams, Preston was played by British actor Ritchie Coster. In the 2015 History Channel miniseries, Sons of Liberty, Preston, is portrayed by Shane Taylor. Hibbert, Christopher. Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution Through British Eyes. Avon Books, 1990
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city proper covers 48 square miles with an estimated population of 685,094 in 2017, making it the most populous city in New England. Boston is the seat of Suffolk County as well, although the county government was disbanded on July 1, 1999; the city is the economic and cultural anchor of a larger metropolitan area known as Greater Boston, a metropolitan statistical area home to a census-estimated 4.8 million people in 2016 and ranking as the tenth-largest such area in the country. As a combined statistical area, this wider commuting region is home to some 8.2 million people, making it the sixth-largest in the United States. Boston is one of the oldest cities in the United States, founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England, it was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Siege of Boston.
Upon gaining U. S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education and culture. The city has expanded beyond the original peninsula through land reclamation and municipal annexation, its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing more than 20 million visitors per year. Boston's many firsts include the United States' first public park, first public or state school and first subway system; the Boston area's many colleges and universities make it an international center of higher education, including law, medicine and business, the city is considered to be a world leader in innovation and entrepreneurship, with nearly 2,000 startups. Boston's economic base includes finance and business services, information technology, government activities. Households in the city claim the highest average rate of philanthropy in the United States; the city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings.
Boston's early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine but renamed it Boston after Boston, England, the origin of several prominent colonists. The renaming on September 7, 1630, was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest for fresh water, their settlement was limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River and connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC. In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history. Over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century.
Boston's oceanfront location made it a lively port, the city engaged in shipping and fishing during its colonial days. However, Boston stagnated in the decades prior to the Revolution. By the mid-18th century, New York City and Philadelphia surpassed Boston in wealth. Boston encountered financial difficulties as other cities in New England grew rapidly. Many of the crucial events of the American Revolution occurred near Boston. Boston's penchant for mob action along with the colonists' growing distrust in Britain fostered a revolutionary spirit in the city; when the British government passed the Stamp Act in 1765, a Boston mob ravaged the homes of Andrew Oliver, the official tasked with enforcing the Act, Thomas Hutchinson the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. The British sent two regiments to Boston in 1768 in an attempt to quell the angry colonists; this did not sit well with the colonists. In 1770, during the Boston Massacre, the army killed several people in response to a mob in Boston.
The colonists compelled the British to withdraw their troops. The event was publicized and fueled a revolutionary movement in America. In 1773, Britain passed the Tea Act. Many of the colonists saw the act as an attempt to force them to accept the taxes established by the Townshend Acts; the act prompted the Boston Tea Party, where a group of rebels threw an entire shipment of tea sent by the British East India Company into Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party was a key event leading up to the revolution, as the British government responded furiously with the Intolerable Acts, demanding compensation for the lost tea from the rebels; this led to the American Revolutionary War. The war began in the area surrounding Boston with the Battles of Concord. Boston itself was besieged for a year during the Siege of Boston, which began on April 19, 1775; the New England militia impeded the movement of the British Army. William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe the commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, led the British army in the siege.
On June 17, the British captured the Charlestown peninsula in Boston, during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British army outnumbered the militia stationed there, but it was a Py
United States Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. The Declaration announced that the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain would regard themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step toward forming the United States of America; the declaration was signed by representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. The Lee Resolution for independence was passed on July 2 with no opposing votes; the Committee of Five had drafted the Declaration to be ready. John Adams, a leader in pushing for independence, had persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress edited to produce the final version.
The Declaration was a formal explanation of why Congress had voted to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America" – although Independence Day is celebrated on July 4, the date that the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved. After ratifying the text on July 4, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms, it was published as the printed Dunlap broadside, distributed and read to the public. The source copy used for this printing has been lost and may have been a copy in Thomas Jefferson's hand. Jefferson's original draft is preserved at the Library of Congress, complete with changes made by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, as well as Jefferson's notes of changes made by Congress; the best-known version of the Declaration is a signed copy, displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.
C. and, popularly regarded as the official document. This engrossed copy was ordered by Congress on July 19 and signed on August 2; the sources and interpretation of the Declaration have been the subject of much scholarly inquiry. The Declaration justified the independence of the United States by listing 27 colonial grievances against King George III and by asserting certain natural and legal rights, including a right of revolution, its original purpose was to announce independence, references to the text of the Declaration were few in the following years. Abraham Lincoln made it the centerpiece of his policies and his rhetoric, as in the Gettysburg Address of 1863. Since it has become a well-known statement on human rights its second sentence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life and the pursuit of Happiness; this has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language", containing "the most potent and consequential words in American history".
The passage came to represent a moral standard. This view was notably promoted by Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy and argued that it is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted; the Declaration of Independence inspired many similar documents in other countries, the first being the 1789 Declaration of United Belgian States issued during the Brabant Revolution in the Austrian Netherlands. It served as the primary model for numerous declarations of independence in Europe and Latin America, as well as Africa and Oceania during the first half of the 19th century. Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose. By the time that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in July 1776, the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain had been at war for more than a year.
Relations had been deteriorating between the colonies and the mother country since 1763. Parliament enacted a series of measures to increase revenue from the colonies, such as the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767. Parliament believed that these acts were a legitimate means of having the colonies pay their fair share of the costs to keep them in the British Empire. Many colonists, had developed a different conception of the empire; the colonies were not directly represented in Parliament, colonists argued that Parliament had no right to levy taxes upon them. This tax dispute was part of a larger divergence between British and American interpretations of the British Constitution and the extent of Parliament's authority in the colonies; the orthodox British view, dating from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, was that Parliament was the supreme authority throughout the empire, so, by definition, anything that Parliament did was constitutional. In the colonies, the idea had developed that the British Constitution recognized certain fundamental rights that no government could violate, not Parliament.
After the Townshend Acts, some essayists began to question whether Parliament had any legitimate jurisdiction in the colonies at all. Anticipating the arrangement of the British Commonwealth, by 1774 American writers such as
Taunton, Massachusetts
Taunton is a city in Bristol County, United States. It is the seat of Bristol County. Taunton is situated on the Taunton River which winds its way through the city on its way to Mount Hope Bay, 10 miles to the south. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 55,874. Thomas Hoye Jr. is the current mayor of Taunton, has held the position since 2012. Founded in 1637 by members of the Plymouth Colony, Taunton is one of the oldest towns in the United States; the Native Americans called the region Cohannet and Titicut before the arrival of the Europeans. Taunton is known as the "Silver City", as it was a historic center of the silver industry beginning in the 19th century when companies such as Reed & Barton, F. B. Rogers, Poole Silver, others produced fine-quality silver goods in the city. Since December 1914, the city of Taunton has provided a large annual light display each December on Taunton Green, giving it the additional nickname of "Christmas City"; the original boundaries of Taunton included the land now occupied by many surrounding towns, including Norton, Mansfield, Raynham and Lakeville.
Possession of the latter is still noted by the naming of Taunton Hill in Assonet. Taunton was founded by settlers from England and incorporated as a town on September 3, 1639. Most of the town's settlers were from Taunton in Somerset, which led early settlers to name the settlement after that town. At the time of Taunton's incorporation, they explained their choice of name as being “in honor and love to our dear native country.” Prior to 1640, the Taunton area was called Tetiquet or Titiquet. The English founders of Taunton purchased the land from the Nemasket Indians in 1637 as part of the Tetiquet Purchase and the remaining native families were relocated to the praying town of Ponkapoag in current day Canton, MA. A central figure among the founders was Elizabeth Poole, believed to have been the first woman to found a settlement in the Americas and, contrary to local folklore, did not take part in the town purchase but was among its greatest beneficiaries and played a significant role in the founding of its church.
Described as "the foundress of Taunton" and its matriarch, Poole "was accorded equality of rights, whether in the purchase of lands, in the sharing of iron works holdings," having been a financier of the settlement's first dam and mill built for the manufacture of bar iron. Plymouth Colony was formally divided into counties on June 2, 1685, with Taunton becoming the shire town of Bristol County; the counties of Plymouth Colony were transferred to the Province of Massachusetts Bay on the arrival of its charter and governor on May 14, 1692. The Taunton area has been the site of skirmishes and battles during various conflicts, including King Philip's War and the American Revolution. Taunton was re-incorporated as a city on May 11, 1864. In 1656, the first successful iron works in Plymouth Colony was established on the Two Mile River, in what is now part of Raynham; the Taunton Iron Works operated for over 200 years until 1876. It was the first of many iron industries in Taunton. During the 19th century, Taunton became known as the "Silver City", as it was home to many silversmithing operations, including Reed & Barton, F.
B. Rogers, Poole Silver. In the 19th century, Taunton was the center of an important iron-making industry, utilizing much bog iron from the numerous swamps in the surrounding area; the iron industry in Taunton produced a variety of goods including stoves and machinery. One of the more successful companies during this period was the Mason Machine Works, founded by William Mason, which produced machinery for the textile industry, as well as steam locomotives; the Taunton Locomotive Works operated in the city during this time. Taunton was home to several textile mills and other industries, such as felt and brick making. During the 19th century, Taunton was a major shipping point for grain from the inland rural farm areas of Massachusetts to the rest of the nation via Weir Village and the Taunton River. With the advent of the railroad, Taunton would become an important transportation hub due to its central location; the city formed the Taunton Municipal Light Plant in 1897, when it decided to purchase the floundering Taunton Electric Lighting Company, making it a publicly owned electric utility.
Today, TMLP provides electric service to 34,000 customers in Taunton, Berkley and sections of Dighton and Bridgewater. TMLP is governed by a three-member Board of Commissioners, elected by the citizens of Taunton. Built in 1942, U. S. Army Camp Myles Standish was a departure point for over a million U. S. and allied military personnel bound for Europe during World War II. It functioned as a prisoner of war camp housing German and Italian soldiers. While Camp Myles Standish was closed in 1946, it was re-purposed as the Paul A Dever School, a facility that housed mentally disabled persons; the school was shut down in the 1980's. A portion of the former Camp Myles Standish was turned into the Myles Standish Industrial Park; the Myles Standish Industrial Park in Taunton's north end is one of the largest in New England. The National Weather Service operates a regional weather forecast office that serves much of Massachusetts, all of Rhode Island, most of northern Connecticut there; the National Weather Service operates the Northeast River Forecast Center on the site, serving New England and most of New York state.
Several major companies operate in other parts of the city. In October 2005, the Whittenton Pond Dam north
Portland, Maine
Portland is a city in the U. S. state of Maine, with a population of 67,067 as of 2017. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, more than one-third of Maine's total population, making it the most populous metro in northern New England. Portland is Maine's economic center, with an economy that relies on tourism; the Old Port district is known for its 19th-century nightlife. Marine industry still plays an important role in the city's economy, with an active waterfront that supports fishing and commercial shipping; the Port of Portland is the largest tonnage seaport in New England. The city has seen growth in the technology sector, with companies such as WEX building headquarters in the city; the city seal depicts a phoenix rising from ashes, a reference to the recoveries from four devastating fires. Portland was named after the English Isle of Dorset. In turn, the city of Portland, Oregon was named after Maine. Portland itself comes from the Old English word Portlanda, which means "land surrounding a harbor".
Native Americans called the Portland peninsula Machigonne. Portland was named for the English Isle of Portland, the city of Portland, was in turn named for Portland, Maine; the first European settler was Capt. Christopher Levett, an English naval captain granted 6,000 acres in 1623 to found a settlement in Casco Bay. A member of the Council for New England and agent for Ferdinando Gorges, Levett built a stone house where he left a company of ten men returned to England to write a book about his voyage to bolster support for the settlement; the settlement was a failure and the fate of Levett's colonists is unknown. The explorer sailed from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to meet John Winthrop in 1630, but never returned to Maine. Fort Levett in the harbor is named for him; the peninsula was settled in 1632 as a trading village named Casco. When the Massachusetts Bay Colony took over Casco Bay in 1658, the town's name changed again to Falmouth. In 1676, the village was destroyed by the Abenaki during King Philip's War.
It was rebuilt. During King William's War, a raiding party of French and their native allies attacked and destroyed it again in the Battle of Fort Loyal. On October 18, 1775, Falmouth was burned in the Revolution by the Royal Navy under command of Captain Henry Mowat. Following the war, a section of Falmouth called The Neck developed as a commercial port and began to grow as a shipping center. In 1786, the citizens of Falmouth formed a separate town in Falmouth Neck and named it Portland, after the isle off the coast of Dorset, England. Portland's economy was stressed by the Embargo Act of 1807, which ended in 1809, the War of 1812, which ended in 1815. In 1820, Maine was established as a state with Portland as its capital. In 1832, the capital was moved East to Augusta. In 1851, Maine led the nation by passing the first state law prohibiting the sale of alcohol except for "medicinal, mechanical or manufacturing purposes." The law subsequently became known as the Maine law, as 18 states followed.
On June 2, 1855, the Portland Rum Riot occurred. In 1853, upon completion of the Grand Trunk Railway to Montreal, Portland became the primary ice-free winter seaport for Canadian exports; the Portland Company manufactured more than 600 19th-century steam locomotives. Portland became a 20th-century rail hub as five additional rail lines merged into Portland Terminal Company in 1911. Following nationalization of the Grand Trunk system in 1923, Canadian export traffic was diverted from Portland to Halifax, Nova Scotia, resulting in marked local economic decline. In the 20th century, icebreakers enabled ships to reach Montreal in winter, drastically reducing Portland's role as a winter port for Canada. On June 26, 1863, a Confederate raiding party led by Captain Charles Read entered the harbor at Portland leading to the Battle of Portland Harbor, one of the northernmost battles of the Civil War; the 1866 Great Fire of Portland, Maine, on July 4, 1866, ignited during the Independence Day celebration, destroyed most of the commercial buildings in the city, half the churches and hundreds of homes.
More than 10,000 people were left homeless. By act of the Maine Legislature in 1899, Portland annexed the city of Deering, despite a vote by Deering residents rejecting the annexation, thereby increasing the size of the city and opening areas for development beyond the peninsula; the construction of The Maine Mall, an indoor shopping center established in the suburb of South Portland, during the 1970s, economically depressed downtown Portland. The trend reversed when tourists and new businesses started revitalizing the old seaport, a part of, known locally as the Old Port. Since the 1990s, the industrial Bayside neighborhood has seen rapid development, including attracting a Whole Foods and Trader Joes supermarkets, as well as Baxter Academy, an popular charter school. Other developing neighborhoods include the India Street neighborhood near the Ocean Gateway and Munjoy Hill, where many modern condos have been built; the Maine College of Art has been a revitalizing force downtown, attracting students from around the country.
The historic Porteous building on Congress Street was restored by the College. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 69.44 square miles, of which 21.31 square miles is land and 48.13 square miles is water. Portland is situated on a peninsula in Casco Bay on the Gulf of Maine and
Spain
Spain the Kingdom of Spain, is a country located in Europe. Its continental European territory is situated on the Iberian Peninsula, its territory includes two archipelagoes: the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. The African enclaves of Ceuta, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera make Spain the only European country to have a physical border with an African country. Several small islands in the Alboran Sea are part of Spanish territory; the country's mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar. With an area of 505,990 km2, Spain is the largest country in Southern Europe, the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union, the fourth largest country in the European continent. By population, Spain is the fifth in the European Union. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago. Iberian cultures along with ancient Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian settlements developed on the peninsula until it came under Roman rule around 200 BCE, after which the region was named Hispania, based on the earlier Phoenician name Spn or Spania.
At the end of the Western Roman Empire the Germanic tribal confederations migrated from Central Europe, invaded the Iberian peninsula and established independent realms in its western provinces, including the Suebi and Vandals. The Visigoths would forcibly integrate all remaining independent territories in the peninsula, including Byzantine provinces, into the Kingdom of Toledo, which more or less unified politically and all the former Roman provinces or successor kingdoms of what was documented as Hispania. In the early eighth century the Visigothic Kingdom fell to the Moors of the Umayyad Islamic Caliphate, who arrived to rule most of the peninsula in the year 726, leaving only a handful of small Christian realms in the north and lasting up to seven centuries in the Kingdom of Granada; this led to many wars during a long reconquering period across the Iberian Peninsula, which led to the creation of the Kingdom of Leon, Kingdom of Castile, Kingdom of Aragon and Kingdom of Navarre as the main Christian kingdoms to face the invasion.
Following the Moorish conquest, Europeans began a gradual process of retaking the region known as the Reconquista, which by the late 15th century culminated in the emergence of Spain as a unified country under the Catholic Monarchs. Until Aragon had been an independent kingdom, which had expanded toward the eastern Mediterranean, incorporating Sicily and Naples, had competed with Genoa and Venice. In the early modern period, Spain became the world's first global empire and the most powerful country in the world, leaving a large cultural and linguistic legacy that includes more than 570 million Hispanophones, making Spanish the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese. During the Golden Age there were many advancements in the arts, with world-famous painters such as Diego Velázquez; the most famous Spanish literary work, Don Quixote, was published during the Golden Age. Spain hosts the world's third-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Spain is a secular parliamentary democracy and a parliamentary monarchy, with King Felipe VI as head of state.
It is a major developed country and a high income country, with the world's fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP and sixteenth largest by purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations, the European Union, the Eurozone, the Council of Europe, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union for the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Schengen Area, the World Trade Organization and many other international organisations. While not an official member, Spain has a "Permanent Invitation" to the G20 summits, participating in every summit, which makes Spain a de facto member of the group; the origins of the Roman name Hispania, from which the modern name España was derived, are uncertain due to inadequate evidence, although it is documented that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians referred to the region as Spania, therefore the most accepted etymology is a Semitic-Phoenician one.
Down the centuries there have been a number of accounts and hypotheses: The Renaissance scholar Antonio de Nebrija proposed that the word Hispania evolved from the Iberian word Hispalis, meaning "city of the western world". Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the term span is the Phoenician word spy, meaning "to forge metals". Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean "the land where metals are forged", it may be a derivation of the Phoenician I-Shpania, meaning "island of rabbits", "land of rabbits" or "edge", a reference to Spain's location at the end of the Mediterranean. The word in question means "Hyrax" due to Phoenicians confusing the two animals. Hispania may derive from the poetic use of the term Hesperia, reflecting the Greek perception of Italy as a "western land" or "land of the setting sun" (Hesperia
