Portal:Venezuela

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...)

General Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and confidence trickster who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian government bonds and land certificates, while about 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822–23 to find only an untouched jungle; more than half of them died. Seen as a contributory factor to the "Panic of 1825", MacGregor's Poyais scheme has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history.

From the Clan Gregor, MacGregor was an officer in the British Army from 1803 to 1810; he served in the Peninsular War. He joined the republican side in the Venezuelan War of Independence in 1812, quickly became a general and, over the next four years, operated against the Spanish on behalf of both Venezuela and its neighbour New Granada. His successes included a difficult month-long fighting retreat through northern Venezuela in 1816. He captured Amelia Island in 1817 under a mandate from revolutionary agents to conquer Florida from the Spanish, and there proclaimed a short-lived "Republic of the Floridas". He then oversaw two calamitous operations in New Granada during 1819 that each ended with his abandoning British volunteer troops under his command. (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 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 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 during the Venezuelan general strike of 2002–2003, all but one of Venezuelan chocolatier María Fernanda Di Giacobbe's ten businesses went bankrupt?
• ... 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 Gil Kim played professional baseball in the Netherlands, China, Australia, Spain, and Venezuela, scouted in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and coaches in Canada?

The University City of Caracas is a World Heritage Site in Caracas, Venezuela. It is a functional university campus for the Central University of Venezuela, as well as home to 108 notable works of art and famous examples of creative architecture. Many works of art are modernist and mosaic. The campus was designed by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, who oversaw much of the construction and design work, with the artwork overseen by Mateo Manaure.

Villanueva primarily enlisted artists who were either European or had European influences – Villanueva himself had been inspired for the campus design in Paris – including members of Los Disidentes, a group of Venezuelan artists who left for Europe to break from the Mexican mural tradition. Some artists did not initially want to work on the project, as they were opposed to the military dictatorship in place in Venezuela at the time, but French artist Fernand Léger encouraged them to participate by saying that "dictatorships pass but art remains"; part of Villanueva's intention was unity. Latin American art scholar Monica Amor wrote that Villanueva's Synthesis of the Arts philosophy, inspired by an André Bloc approach, "advocated a strong humanist approach to urban issues of reconstruction and social healing after the devastation of World War II." Amor noted that debate surrounding the dictatorship's funding of the project, and its realization in this context, persists into the 21st century. (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)