Portal:Venezuela

The Aula Magna is an auditorium at the Central University of Venezuela. It is located within the University City of Caracas, next to the University's main library building. The hall was designed by the Venezuelan architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva in the 1940s and built by the Danish company Christiani & Nielsen from 1952–53. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in November 2000 for being artistically and architecturally significant. The most notable feature of the hall is its acoustic 'clouds', which serve both aesthetic and practical functions. They are an element of the hall's design which contributed to the science of interior space acoustics, though the building exterior is also architecturally significant.

The Aula Magna has been named the "most important auditorium" at the university. This is in part because of practicality: it is the largest capacity auditorium, being able to hold approximately 2,700 people with removable seats. However, it is also significant because of the academic, artistic, and political events which have taken place within it. Some of these events have been of great importance for the country and some have been part of historical movements. In present-day Caracas, the hall has been a site of political controversy, as well as suffering from a lack of maintenance funds. (Full article...)

Lorena Telpuk, formerly María del Luján Telpuk (sometimes María de Luján Telpuk) or the Suitcase Girl (born c. 1981), is a former airport police officer at Aeroparque Jorge Newbery in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who noticed a suitcase with US$800,000 as it went through an X-ray machine in August 2007, initiating a very public international election scandal, known as Maletinazo.

When the suitcase scandal became public, Telpuk became an international celebrity, appearing on the cover of several magazines, including those of the February 2008 issue of the Argentine edition of Playboy magazine and the March 2008 issue of the Venezuelan edition of Playboy magazine. (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 when elected as mayor, Venezuelan politician Gloria Lizárraga de Capriles did not have her own office and worked from a shopping mall?
• ... that Julio Mayora was most happy about winning his silver medal for Venezuela at the 2020 Summer Olympics because it meant the government might give his mother a house?
• ... that after fleeing the Spanish Civil War to Venezuela, Spanish anarchist Concha Liaño became a supporter of Hugo Chávez?
• ... 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 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?

The Luis Aparicio Award is given annually to a Venezuelan player in Major League Baseball (MLB) who is judged to have recorded the best individual performance in that year. The winner of the award is determined by a vote conducted by Venezuelan sports journalists and Spanish-language media around the world. It is named after former MLB shortstop Luis Aparicio, who is the only player from Venezuela to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The award was first presented in 2004, and was created in order to honour Aparicio's major league career and to commemorate his father, who died thirteen years before his son was elected into the Hall of Fame.

Johan Santana, José Altuve, Miguel Cabrera, and Ronald Acuña Jr. are the only players to win the Luis Aparicio Award more than once, with Cabrera having won the award five times. Cabrera won the MLB Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award and Hank Aaron Award alongside the Luis Aparicio Award in 2012 and 2013, becoming the first Venezuelan to win the MLB MVP Award. Santana, the 2004 and 2006 recipient, also won the Cy Young Award in those two years, winning by a unanimous vote on each occasion. Altuve is the only player to win the Luis Aparicio Award, the MVP award, and become a World Series champion in the same season in 2017. He has also won a batting title in three of his four award seasons. Santana (2006) and Cabrera (2012) are the only award winners to also earn the pitching and batting Triple Crown respectively in the same season. In accomplishing the feat, Cabrera became the first player in 45 years to achieve a Triple Crown in batting since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, while Santana became the first pitcher since Dwight Gooden in 1985 to secure a "Major League Triple Crown" by leading all of MLB in wins, earned run average and strikeouts. Francisco Rodríguez compiled a major league record of 62 saves in a single season in 2008 and went on to win the Rolaids Relief Man Award in the same year as the Luis Aparicio Award. Five winners – Cabrera, Altuve, Magglio Ordóñez, Carlos González, and Arráez – were batting champions in their respective leagues in the same year they won the award. (Full article...)

9 August 2024 – 2024 Venezuelan presidential election

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro suspends the X social network in Venezuela for 10 days, accusing X's owner Elon Musk of promoting hatred. (AP)

5 August 2024 – 2024 Venezuelan presidential election

International reactions to the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election

The European Union joins the United States and several Latin American nations in refusing to accept the claimed Venezuelan presidential election victory of Incumbent President Nicolás Maduro. (Kyiv Post)

Brazil becomes the representative of the interests of Argentina and Peru in Venezuela, after Venezuela expels the Argentinian and Peruvian diplomats following tensions in the aftermath of the presidential election. (Reuters)

5 August 2024 – 2024 Venezuelan presidential election, 2024 Venezuelan protests

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab opens a criminal investigation into opposition officials Edmundo González and María Corina Machado for calling on the Armed Forces to abandon their support for President Nicolás Maduro throughout the protests and riots in the country. (DW)

3 August 2024 – Parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans

The Biden administration provisionally suspends all migrant permits allowing Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans to enter and stay in the United States for up to two years following suspicions of fraud by several migrant financial sponsors. (AP)