Posted on 10/11/2009 10:25:16 AM PDT by luckybogey
“That’s the nature of women, not to love when we love them, and to love when we love them not” & “There are only two families in the world, my old grandmother used to say, the Haves and the Have-nots.” Quotes by Miguel Cervantes
In keeping with our cultural theme and “politics free” Sunday blog post, I have chosen to enlighten my readers on the history of a Spanish town near Madrid, the birthplace of the illustrious Miguel de Cervantes, the author of “Don Quixote”, and my Spanish casa for many years while serving in the USAF stationed at Torrejon Air Base supporting the mission of the 614th Tactical Fighter Squadron. For our Sunday music, I have selected Placido Domingo…
Alcalá is well-known for its population of white storks. Their large nests can be observed atop many of the churches and historic buildings in the city, and are themselves a significant tourist attraction.
For over twenty year’s Alcalá’s storks have been counted and studied, and the active protection and maintenance of their nests is by official policy. Although once in danger of disappearing, with only eleven pairs counted between 1986 and 1987, the population has grown to around 90 resident pairs today, many of which have shortened the distance and duration of their typical migrations to remain in the city nearly all year...
When in 711 the Moors arrived, they subdued the Visigothic city and founded another site, building an al-qal’a, which means “citadel” in Arabic, on a nearby hill, today known as Alcalá la Vieja (Old Alcalá). On 3 May 1118 it was reconquered by the Archbishop of Toledo, Spain Bernardo de Sedirac in the name of Castile...
(Excerpt) Read more at luckybogey.wordpress.com ...
Unless I overlooked it, you don’t mention another person who is connected with Alcala—San Diego de Alcala, who wasn’t born there but died there in 1463, after whom San Diego, California, is named.
I did not know about San Diego de Alcala. Will research. thank you.
According to these sources:
Little is known about Cabrillo’s early years. His nationality was first addressed by contemporary Spanish chronicler Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, who, in his Historia General de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano, referred to Cabrillo as Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo Português. For that reason, most biographies describe him as Portuguese. Still, historian Harry Kelsey, in his exhaustive 1986 biography João Rodrigues Cabrillo, writes that Cabrillo appears to have been born in Spain, “probably in Seville, but perhaps in Cuéllar [curiously, hometown of Antonio de Herrera].” His date of birth was in 1499, but events in Cabrillo’s life lead Kelsey to believe he was born of poor parents “around 1498 or 1500,” and then worked for his keep in the home of a prominent Seville merchant. Anyway, most sources regard him as Portuguese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Cabrillo
Sailing from Navidad on 27 June 1542, Rodríguez Cabrillo began his historic voyage to Alta California; a voyage from which he would not return. On 23 November of that year he was injured by a fall on San Miguel Island, yet continued to explore the north coast of California. Upon his return to San Miguel he died of his injury on 3 January 1543, after conceding command to his pilot, Bartolome’ Ferrer, a Levantine (Valencian).
https://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/73summer/cabrillo.htm
1543 - His second-in-command brought the remainder of the party back to Navidad, where they arrived on the 14th of April.
- He died on the 3rd of January, off the coast of Southern California, but his burial site is unknown; Santa Catalina Island, San Miguel Island and Santa Rosa Island have all been suggested.
http://www.s9.com/Biography/Cabrillo-Juan-Rodriguez
I had known about Cabrillo since I was in grade school but had not been aware that anyone had questioned his Portuguese birth. He may have gotten as far north as the Oregon coast before turning back. If I remember correctly, he named San Diego bay “San Miguel,” but the names he gave to places were later replaced by those given by Sebastian Vizcaino in the early 1600s. Cabrillo may be one of the least-known of the Spanish explorers of what is now the US, but he does have a national monument named for him on Point Loma in San Diego.
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