Pedro Álvares Cabral (c. 1467 – c. 1520) was a Portuguese noble, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the discoverer of Brazil. Cabral conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal. He was appointed to head an expedition to India in 1500, following Vasco da Gama's newly opened route around Africa. His fleet of 13 ships sailed far into the western Atlantic Ocean, perhaps intentionally, where he made landfall on what he initially assumed to be a large island. As the new land was within the Portuguese sphere according to the Treaty of Tordesillas, Cabral claimed it for the Portuguese Crown. He explored the coast, realizing that the large land mass was likely a continent, and dispatched a ship to notify King Manuel I of the new territory. The continent was South America, and the land he had claimed for Portugal later came to be known as Brazil. Cabral was later passed over, possibly as a result of a quarrel with Manuel I, when a new fleet was assembled to establish a more robust presence in India. Having lost favor with the King, he retired to a private life of which few records survive. His accomplishments slipped into obscurity for more than 300 years. Historians have long argued whether Cabral was Brazil's discoverer, and whether the discovery was accidental or intentional. Nevertheless, although he was overshadowed by contemporary explorers, Cabral today is regarded as a major figure of the Age of Discovery.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

966:

After his marriage to the Christian Dobrawa of Bohemia, the pagan ruler of the Polans, Mieszko I, converted to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_during_the_Piast_dynasty

1471:

Wars of the Roses: The Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians near the town of Barnet, killing Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Barnet

1865:

Actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth fatally shot U.S. President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Abraham_Lincoln

1999:

A storm dropped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hailstones in Sydney and along the east coast of New South Wales, causing about A$2.3 billion in damages, the costliest natural disaster in Australian insurance history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Sydney_hailstorm

2007:

In Ankara, Turkey, the first of the Republic Protests took place, when hundreds of thousands of people protested against the possible presidential candidacy of incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_Protests

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

moue (n): A pout http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moue

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I have read that the secret of gallantry is to accept the pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug; as well as that, among other requisites, the gallant person will always consider the world with a smile of toleration, and his own doings with a smile of honest amusement, and Heaven with a smile which is not distrustful — being thoroughly persuaded that God is kindlier than the genteel would regard as rational. --James Branch Cabell http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Branch_Cabell