Portal:Venezuela

Fortín Solano was built at the top of the Cresta de Vigía (or "lookout crest") to protect the city from naval attacks.

Fortín Solano is an eighteenth-century colonial fortification overlooking Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. With the Castillo San Felipe, an earlier fort built at sea level, it formed part of a complex of fortifications designed to protect Puerto Cabello and its important harbour from naval attacks. It was constructed c. 1766 by order of Don José Solano y Bote on behalf of the King of Spain. It has been described as the last military construction built in Venezuela during the colonial era.

The fort has been the center of several notable events in Venezuelan history. Spanish commander Antonio Zuazola was hanged after a surprise attack by the forces of Rafael Urdaneta overthrew the royalists, giving control of the fort to the patriots. Pedro Carujo was imprisoned in the fort after attempting to kill Simón Bolívar in 1828. In 1962, the fort was the stronghold of an uprising led by several commanders in the city. (Full article...)

Posthumous portrait, 1922

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios Ponte y Blanco (24 July 1783 – 17 December 1830) was a Venezuelan statesman and military officer who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire. He is known colloquially as El Libertador, or the Liberator of America.

Simón Bolívar was born in Caracas in the Captaincy General of Venezuela into a wealthy family of American-born Spaniards (criollo) but lost both parents as a child. Bolívar was educated abroad and lived in Spain, as was common for men of upper-class families in his day. While living in Madrid from 1800 to 1802, he was introduced to Enlightenment philosophy and married María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa, who died in Venezuela from yellow fever in 1803. From 1803 to 1805, Bolívar embarked on a Grand Tour that ended in Rome, where he swore to end the Spanish rule in the Americas. In 1807, Bolívar returned to Venezuela and promoted Venezuelan independence to other wealthy creoles. When the Spanish authority in the Americas weakened due to Napoleon's Peninsular War, Bolívar became a zealous combatant and politician in the Spanish-American wars of independence. (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 the flag of La Guaira is based on the design of a banner from a 1797 conspiracy against Spanish rule in Venezuela?
• ... that after fleeing the Spanish Civil War to Venezuela, Spanish anarchist Concha Liaño became a supporter of Hugo Chávez?
• ... that when elected as mayor, Venezuelan politician Gloria Lizárraga de Capriles did not have her own office and worked from a shopping mall?
• ... that the current flag of Falcón, a state of Venezuela, was first hoisted at the Monument to the Venezuelan Federation in 2006 and is based on the design of the 1806 naval flag of Francisco de Miranda?
• ... 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 Carlos Santana Tovar, who represented Amazonas in the 1952 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly, was taken hostage during the 1921 revolution and escaped only years later?

This is a list of the bird species recorded in Venezuela. The avifauna of Venezuela has 1412 confirmed species, of which 45 are endemic, six have been introduced by humans, 48 are rare or vagrants, and one has been extirpated. An additional 20 species are hypothetical (see below).

Except as an entry is cited otherwise, the list of species is that of the South American Classification Committee (SACC) of the American Ornithological Society. The list's taxonomic treatment (designation and sequence of orders, families, and species) and nomenclature (common and scientific names) are also those of the SACC unless noted otherwise. Capitalization within English names follows Wikipedia practice, i.e. only the first word of a name is capitalized unless a place name such as São Paulo is used. (Full article...)

14 December 2024 –

The 24th summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) is held in Caracas, Venezuela. (ALBA-TCP News)

12 December 2024 –

The Venezuelan government releases 103 prisoners who were arrested during the protests against the results of the disputed presidential election in July. (Al Jazeera) (CNN)

27 November 2024 – United States–Venezuela relations, 2024 Venezuelan political crisis

The United States imposes sanctions on 21 Venezuelan officials, including information minister Freddy Ñáñez and planning minister Ricardo Menéndez, for suppressing the protests against the results of the presidential election in July. (DW)