Portal:Venezuela

Stonewalls protect the castle's core from the outer structures surrounding it.

Santa Rosa de la Eminencia castle is a colonial castle built in the seventeenth century by the Spanish monarchy on Margarita Island, Venezuela. After a group of French pirates attacked the city of La Asunción, its construction started on 24 March 1677, by order of governor Juan Muñoz de Gadea, and it was finished c. 1683.

The structure comprises three defensive fronts, each one with two bastions, two half bastions and three curtains, and is positioned at the top of a hill that overlooks the city The castle served as a prison for war heroine Luisa Cáceres de Arismendi between November 1815 and January 1816. She was held captive by the Spanish forces on an attempt to bow down her husband, Juan Bautista Arismendi, who was the chief of the patriotic forces on the island. Simón Bolívar's arrival to the island prompted the partial destruction and abandonment of the fort in May 1816. By 1899, the facility serviced as headquarters, and later as quarters for the National Army. It was declared as a National Monument in 1965. (Full article...)

Chávez in 2011

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías^[a] (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈuɣo rafaˈel ˈtʃaβes ˈfɾi.as] ^ⓘ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician and military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period of forty-seven hours in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012.

Born into a middleclass family in Sabaneta, Barinas, Chávez became a career military officer. After becoming dissatisfied with the Venezuelan political system based on the Puntofijo Pact, he founded the clandestine Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 (MBR-200) in the early 1980s. Chávez led the MBR-200 in its unsuccessful coup d'état against the Democratic Action government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1992, for which he was imprisoned. Pardoned from prison two years later, he founded the Fifth Republic Movement political party, and then receiving 56.2% of the vote, was elected president of Venezuela in 1998. He was re-elected in the 2000 Venezuelan general election with 59.8% of the vote and again in the 2006 Venezuelan presidential election, with 62.8% of the vote. After winning his fourth term as president in the 2012 Venezuelan presidential election with 55.1% of the vote, he was to be sworn in on 10 January 2013. However, the inauguration was cancelled due to his cancer treatment, and on 5 March at age 58, he died in Caracas. (Full article...)

• May 2, 1816 – The Battle of Los Frailes is fought around the Los Frailes Archipelago.
• May 2, 1952 – The Sierra Nevada National Park is founded.
• May 3, 1502 – In present-day Venezuela, the Spanish conquistadors led by Alonso de Ojeda founded the village of Santa Cruz de Coquibacoa, the first European settlement in the Americas.
• May 5, 1883 – Birth of Eleazar López Contreras, soldier and politician, President of Venezuela (d. 1973)
• May 6, 1873 – Death of José Antonio Páez, politician and independence leader, three-time President of Venezuela (b. 1790)
• May 13, 1958 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, US Vice President Richard Nixon's car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.
• May 14, 1777 – In Madrid, Carlos III created the Protomedicato de Caracas by royal decree, thus beginning medical studies in Venezuela.
• May 18, 1499 – Alonso de Ojeda sets sail from Cádiz on his voyage to what is now Venezuela.
• May 21, 2014 – Death of Jaime Lusinchi, physician and politician, President of Venezuela (b. 1924)
• May 24, 1813 – South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador ("The Liberator").
• May 27, 1924 – Birth of Jaime Lusinchi, physician and politician, President of Venezuela (d. 2014)
• May 27, 2007 – Hugo Chávez controversially closes the private television station Radio Caracas Television (RCTV); the next day he replaces it with a state-run television service.

• ... that Gil Kim played professional baseball in the Netherlands, China, Australia, Spain, and Venezuela, scouted in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and coaches in Canada?
• ... that during the Venezuelan general strike of 2002–2003, all but one of Venezuelan chocolatier María Fernanda Di Giacobbe's ten businesses went bankrupt?
• ... that the flag of La Guaira is based on the design of a banner from a 1797 conspiracy against Spanish rule in Venezuela?
• ... that when elected as mayor, Venezuelan politician Gloria Lizárraga de Capriles did not have her own office and worked from a shopping mall?
• ... that Carlos Santana Tovar, who represented Amazonas in the 1952 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly, was taken hostage during the 1921 revolution and escaped only years later?
• ... that Juan de Casas, the Spanish military governor of Venezuela, cried after the French demanded that he accept a Frenchman as king?

Román Chalbaud worked in Venezuelan film, television and theatre, starting in 1951 and continuing to direct, write, and produce works until his death in 2023. Though most famous for his Golden Age films, he is also renowned in Venezuela as part of the "Holy Trinity" of theater for his contributions not only in playwriting, but also in direction and production. Besides these, he wrote and created many television series and telenovelas, and occasionally acted in both his own and his contemporaries' works. Chalbaud's continuing work into his old age may be due to his affiliation with the successive Venezuelan governments, which have funded his works since such programs began. (Full article...)

4 October 2024 – Parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans

The United States Department of Homeland Security reports that the Biden administration will not renew the legal status of 530,000 migrants who entered the U.S. as part of a provisional humanitarian program beginning in 2022. (Reuters)

23 September 2024 – Argentina–Venezuela relations

A court in Argentina orders the arrest of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and interior minister Diosdado Cabello, accusing them of crimes against humanity. (Infobae)

The Supreme Court of Venezuela orders the arrest of Argentinian President Javier Milei after Argentina detains a Venezuelan aircraft. (AP)