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.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_%C3%81lvares_Cabral>
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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>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
moue (n):
A pout
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moue>
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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>
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