The Spanish conquest of Petén was the last stage of the conquest of
Guatemala, a prolonged conflict during the Spanish colonisation of the
Americas. The Itza, the Yalain, the Kowoj, and other Maya populations in
Petén were engaged in a complex web of alliances and enmities before
the conquest. Petén was first penetrated by Hernán Cortés with a
sizeable expedition that crossed the territory from north to south in
1525. In the first half of the 16th century Spain established
neighbouring colonies in Yucatán to the north and Guatemala to the
south. In 1622 a military expedition from Yucatán led by Captain
Francisco de Mirones was massacred by the Itza. In 1628 the Manche Ch'ol
of the south were placed under the administration of the colonial
governor of Verapaz within the Captaincy General of Guatemala. In 1695
another expedition tried to reach Lake Petén Itzá from Guatemala.
Martín de Ursúa y Arizmendi captured Nojpetén, the island capital of
the Itza kingdom, in 1697, defeating the last of the independent native
kingdoms in the Americas and incorporating them into the Spanish Empire.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_Pet%C3%A9n>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1430:
Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc was captured at the Siege of
Compiègne.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Compi%C3%A8gne>
1706:
War of the Spanish Succession: Led by the Duke of Marlborough,
the allied forces of England, the Dutch Republic, and Denmark–Norway
defeated the Franco-Bavarian army in Ramillies, present-day Belgium.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ramillies>
1873:
The North West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police, was established to bring law and order to and
assert Canadian sovereignty over the Northwest Territories.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Mounted_Police>
1934:
American criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ambushed
and killed by police on a desolate road near their hideout in Bienville
Parish, Louisiana.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_and_Clyde>
2008:
To resolve a 29-year-old territorial dispute, the International
Court of Justice awarded Middle Rocks to Malaysia and Pedra Branca to
Singapore.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedra_Branca_dispute>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
fief:
1. An estate held by a person on condition of providing military service to
a superior.
2. Something over which one has rights or exercises control.
3. (metaphor) An area of dominion, especially in a corporate or
governmental bureaucracy.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fief>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have
every path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man. Were this done, and a
slight temporary fermentation allowed to subside, we should see
crystallizations more pure and of more various beauty. We believe the
divine energy would pervade nature to a degree unknown in the history of
former ages, and that no discordant collision, but a ravishing harmony
of the spheres, would ensue. Yet, then and only then will mankind be
ripe for this, when inward and outward freedom for Woman as much as for
Man shall be acknowledged as a right, not yielded as a concession.
--Margaret Fuller
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Fuller>