Portal:Spain/Selected article/Archives
Selected articles list
Portal:Spain/Selected article/1
Madrid Barajas International Airport is an international airport, located north-east of Madrid's city centre. Originally opened in 1928, the airport has become one of the busiest and most important airports in Europe; with more than 45 million people passing through in 2006. The airport is ranked as the world's thirteenth, and Europe's fifth busiest airport in the world. Iberia Airlines accounts for 60% of the airport's traffic. Terminal four was designed by Richard Rogers, and became a part of the airport on February 5, 2006; it has since become one of the largest airports in the world, covering an area of 760,000 square feet. The terminal won its designers awards for the construction, including the Structural Awards and the Stirling Prize.
One the morning of 30 December 2006 an explosion occurred in the carpark building module D, which is attached to terminal 4. The incident was first recorded at 08:34 (GMT) by employee Samantha Graham. Prior to this, a bomb threat was received, so police had been able to evacuate part of the airport.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/2
The Palmeral of Elche (Spanish: Palmeral de Elche, Valencian: Palmerar d'Elx) is a plantation of palm trees in the Spanish province of Alicante. It is the largest palm grove (Spanish: palmeral) in Europe and one of the largest in the world, surpassed in size only by some in Arab countries. The Palmeral includes the Parque Municipal and many other orchards (huertos), covering over 3.5 square kilometres, including 1.5 km² within the city of Elche (Elx). It contains more than 11,000 palm trees, mostly date palms, with individual specimens up to 300 years old. At its peak, in the 18th century, it may have covered an area twice as large, with up to 200,000 trees. The dates are harvested in December. The largest palm is the "Imperial Palm" (Palmera Imperial), with 7 stems in the shape of a candelabra, named after Elisabeth, known as Sissi, the Empress consort of Franz Joseph, who visited the plantation in 1894.
It is thought that palms were originally planted in this location as early as the 5th century BC by Carthaginians who settled in south-east Spain. The plantation survived under the Romans and the Moors. The irrigation system was extended in the times of Abd ar-Rahman I and remains in use. The formal landscape of the palmeral that still exists today was created when the city was under Moorish control in the 10th century. Although the area has an annual rainfall of only 300 mm, the palm trees planted along a network of irrigation canals from the salty River Vinalopó creates a patchwork of agricultral plots (huertos), each demarcated and shaded by the palm trees to create a protected microclimate. Laws were passed to protect the plantation after the Reconquista.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/3
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The Spanish Constitution of 1978 is a culmination of the Spanish transition to democracy. The history of Spain in constitutional terms dates back to 1812. Following the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, a general election convened the Constituent Cortes, the description of the Spanish Parliament.
A seven-member panel was selected among the elected members of the Cortes to work on a draft of the Constitution to be submitted to the body. These came to be known, as the media put it, as the padres de la Constitución or "fathers of the Constitution". These seven people were chosen to represent the wide (and often, deeply divided) political spectrum within the Spanish Parliament, while the leading role was given to then ruling party and now defunct Unión de Centro Democrático. Writing the preamble of the constitution was considered an honour, and a task requiring great literary ability. The person chosen for this purpose was Enrique Tierno Galván. As well as this, the constituon recognises the existence of nationalalities and regions.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/4
The Bonfires of Saint John is a popular festival celebrated between June 19 and June 24 in Spain. The festival is considered the most important in the city of Alicante, but is celebrated in several other cities and towns across Spain. The festival consists of people gathering wood and other objects to burn on a bonfire, often sharing hot chocolates while teenagers jump over the small fires.
Before 1928 the bonfires of Saint John had been celebrated in Alicante as it had been elsewhere in Europe: by burning old pieces of furniture on the night of Saint John on June 24. The Bonfires festival was originated in 1928. Jose María Py felt that Alicante did not have an important fiesta, and adapted a Valencian festival known as the "fallas". The festival would ultimately become the most important cultural event in Alicantinian society. Bonfires are organised into commissions which fundraise and host the other events throughout the year. A member of a commission is called a foguerer. A commission usually represents one area, a place or an avenue in the city, but there are many areas with numerous commissions. (For example, Carolinas has five commissions: Carolinas Altas, Carolinas Bajas, Foguerer-Carolinas, Doctor Bergez-Carolinas and Bola de Oro.) In Alicante there are 86 commissions.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/5
Bullfighting or tauromachy (Spanish: toreo, corrida de toros or tauromaquia; Portuguese tourada, corrida de touros or tauromaquia) is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, some cities in southern France, and several Latin American countries. Its origin is unknown, though it has been suggested that it was originally brought to Spain by the Visigoths. A link to the old culture of Crete has also been proposed.
The tradition, as it is practiced today, involves professional performers (in Spanish toreros or matadores, in Portuguese toureiros) who execute various formal moves with the goal of appearing graceful and confident, while masterful over the bull itself. Such maneuvers are performed at close range, and conclude with the death the bull by a well-placed sword thrust as the finale. In Portugal the finale consists of a tradition called the pega, where men (Forcados) are dressed in a traditional costume of damask or velvet, with long knit hats as worn by the famous Ribatejo campinos (bull headers). Bullfighting generates heated controversy in many areas of the world, including Spain, where the "classic" bullfighting was born. Supporters of bullfighting argue that it is a culturally important tradition, while animal rights groups argue that it is a blood sport because of the suffering of the bull and horses during the bullfight.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/6
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is the official name of Spain's national museum of 20th century art. The museum is commonly referred to as Museo Reina Sofía, Queen Sofia Museum, or The Sofia. The museum was inaugurated on 10 September 1992 and is named after Queen Sofia of Spain. The museum is located in Madrid at the southern area of the 'Golden Triangle of Art'.
The museum focuses mainly on Spanish art. Highlights of the museum include excellent collections of Spain's two greatest 20th century masters, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. Certainly the most famous masterpiece in the museum is Picasso's great painting Guernica. The Reina Sofía also has fine collections of the works of Juan Gris, Joan Miró, Julio González, Eduardo Chillida, Antoni Tàpies, Pablo Gargallo, Pablo Serrano, Lucio Muñoz, Luis Gordillo, Jorge Oteiza, José Gutiérrez Solana and many other significant artists. Foreign artists are few, but there are works by Robert Delaunay, Yves Tanguy, Man Ray, Jacques Lipchniz, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, cubist still lifes by Georges Braque and a large work by Francis Bacon.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/7
The flag of Spain, as it is defined in the Spanish Constitution of 1978, is divided into three horizontal stripes: red, yellow and red, the yellow stripe being twice the size of each red stripe. The state and war flags and ensigns must be charged with the Spanish coat of arms, while the civil flag and ensign leaves the inclusion of the coat of arms as optional. The coat of arms must be placed at 1/3 the flag's length towards the hoist, and the height of the coat of arms should measure two fifths of the flag's width (i.e. hoist).
The current coat of arms was adopted on December 19, 1981, when it replaced the model of 1977 which, in turn, replaced the model of 1945, considered the official coat of arms of Francoist Spain. The coat of arms was the only changing element in those years. The colours previously defined in the constitution were amarillo (yellow) and rojo (red). Traditionally, the middle stripe was defined by the more archaic terms amarillo gualda (weld-coloured) but this word was removed from the draft of the Constitution by an amendment of Camilo José Cela, a writer appointed by the king to the Constituent Cortes. The origin of the current flag of Spain is the Naval Ensign of 1785, Pabellón de la Marina de Guerra under Carlos III of Spain.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/8
The Tower of Hercules is an ancient Roman lighthouse, located on a peninsula approximately 1½ from the center of the city of A Coruña. The tower remains a sentinel from days long past. It is known to have existed by the 2nd century, built or perhaps rebuilt under Trajan, perhaps on foundations and just possibly following a design that was Phoenician in origin. At its base is preserved the cornerstone with the inscription MARTI AUG.SACR C.SEVIVS LUPUS ARCHTECTUS AEMINIENSIS LVSITANVS.EX.VO, permitting the original lighthouse tower to be ascribed to the architect Gaius Sevius Lupus, from Aeminia (an ancient Roman town near present-day Coimbra, Portugal) in the former province of Lusitania, as an ex voto dedicated to Mars. The tower has been in constant use since the 2nd century. Originally it was constructed with an ascending ramp encircling its sides, for oxen to bring cartloads of wood to keep the light fueled at night.
According to Gaelic legend embodied in the 11th-century compilation Lebor Gabala Erren— the "Book of Invasions"— King Breogán, the founding father of the Galician Celtic nation, constructed here a massive tower of such a grand height that his sons could see a distant green shore from its top. The glimpse of that distant green land lured them to sail north to Ireland. A colossal statue of Breogán has been erected near the Tower.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/9
The Biblioteca Nacional de España ('The National Library of Spain') is a major public library, the largest in Spain. It is located in Madrid near the Paseo de Recoletos. Founded in 1711, the Library was originally The Royal Public Library of King Philip V. It housed some 60,000 books by 1752, by which time it had become a legal deposit library. The Library continued to grow, and had significant royal patronage throughout the 18th century. By 1836 it had been renamed as The National Library of Spain ('Biblioteca Nacional de España'), and by 1850 it housed some 200,000 items. In 1896 the Library moved to the current location in center Madrid. The Madrid premises are shared with the National Archaeological Museum.
Its current catalog is called the Bibliografía Española. It indexes some 6,000,000 books and journals, 25,000 manuscripts, and 240,000 rare books. In addition to books, maps and manuscripts, it holds collections of visual material such as drawings, posters, and photographs.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/10
Ceuta is an autonomous city of Spain located on the Mediterranean, on the North African side of the Strait of Gibraltar, which separates it from the Spanish mainland. Ceuta, together with the other plazas de soberanía including the African autonomous city of Melilla and a number of Mediterranean islets, is claimed by Morocco. The area of Ceuta is approximately 28 km². Ceuta is dominated by a hill called Monte Hacho, on which there is a fort occupied by the Spanish army. Monte Hacho is one of the possible locations for the southern Pillars of Hercules of Greek Legend, the other possibility being Jebel Musa.
Ceuta's strategic location has made it the crucial waypoint of many cultures' trade and military ventures — beginning with the Carthaginians in the 5th century BC, who called the city Abyla. It was not until the Romans took control in about A.D. 42 that the port city (then named Septem) assumed an almost exclusive military purpose. Approximately 400 years later, the Vandals ousted the Romans for control, and later it fell to the Visigoths of Hispania and the Byzantines. In 710, as Muslim armies approached the city, its Byzantine governor Julian (also described as "king of the Ghomara") changed sides and urged them to invade the Iberian Peninsula. Under the leadership of Berber general Tariq ibn Ziyad, Ceuta was used as a prime staging ground for an assault on Visigothic Hispania soon after.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/11
Rockdelux is a popular music magazine published monthly in Spain. Rockdelux was first published in November 1984, and since then has accumulated over 200 editions, celebrating its 200th in October 2002, when it released a list of the 200 greatest international albums of all time, according to the magazine's staff. Rockdelux's brief is to serve a specific section of the public who are passionate about music, and its focus has been to concentrate on new and more alternative artists from both Spain and the outside world (termed "international").
It has an extensive review section, covering mainly new musical releases and re-releases, but also covers other music-related subjects such as live concerts and videos and features reviews of new books and graphic novels. Unlike many other review sections in popular magazines, it eschews the trend of giving a numerical value to each review, which are purely composed of written text summing up the release's values. During its tenure within the industry, Rockdelux has been the recipient of various awards for music publication of the year from such organisations as Radio 3, Cadena SER and Iberpop amongst others.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/12
Tenerife Tram (Tranvía de Tenerife) is a tram service based on the island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. It began its test phase on April 25, 2007, with one track. It will join the Intercambiador in Santa Cruz de Tenerife at Trinidad Avenue in La Laguna.
A street car system had once existed on Tenerife. It was inaugurated on April 7, 1901, with a service that began in Santa Cruz and finished in La Laguna. It was designed by the Spanish engineer and military man Julio Cervera Baviera. In 1904 the line was extended to Tacoronte. In 1927 the Cabildo of Tenerife took control of the operating company due to economic problems. The tram car lines remained functional until 1951, when, due to a series of problems and accidents, and increased competition with the car and bus (on Tenerife, buses are called guaguas), the service was discontinued.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/13
Britannia Airways Flight BY226A was an international charter flight from Cardiff, Wales, UK, which crashed on landing at Girona Airport, Spain on 14 September 1999, and broke apart. Of the 236 passengers and 9 crew on board, there were no fatalities, but two were seriously injured and 42 sustained minor injuries. The Boeing 757-204 aircraft, registration G-BYAG, was damaged beyond economic repair and scrapped. The holiday charter flight was landing at night, through thunderstorms with heavy rain at 21:47 UTC (23:47 local). Several preceding flights had diverted to Barcelona and this was planned as BY226A's alternate. The weather prior to the landing approach was reported as:
Surface wind 350/6 kt, visibility 4 km, thunderstorm with heavy rain, cloud 3-4 octas at 1,500 feet, 1-2 octas cumulonimbus at 3,000 feet, 5-7 octas at 4,000 feet, temperature 20°C/ dewpoint 20°C, QNH 1010 mb, remarks recent rain.
The crew initially executed the VOR/DME non-precision instrument approach procedure to runway 02. Upon becoming visual, the crew determined that the aircraft was not adequately aligned with the runway and initiated a missed approach. A change in wind direction now favoured the opposite runway, so the aircraft was positioned for an ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach to runway 20. The aircraft descended below cloud and became visual with the runway at around 500 feet above ground level. At a late stage in the final approach, the airfield lighting failed for a few seconds. The aircraft touched down hard, bounced, and made a second heavier touchdown causing substantial damage to the nosewheel and its supports. This caused further damage to the aircraft systems, including loss of electrical power, interference with controls and an uncommanded increase in thrust.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/14
The USS Reina Mercedes was a cruiser captured by the US Navy during the Spanish–American War. Th ship was named in honor of Queen Mercedes of Spain when she was built at Cartagena in 1887. The ship served under Admiral Cervera in the defense of Santiago, Cuba, although her boilers and engines were in very poor shape and much of her armament had been removed to be used from shore batteries. After an attempt to use her to block the channel was discovered, she was sunk by the USS Massachusetts and USS Texas.
Raised after the war, she was towed to Newport, Rhode Island where she served as a receiving ship. After a refit in 1912, she was transferred to Annapolis, Maryland to serve as a station ship, replacing the USS Hartford. Until 1940, one of the Reina Mercedes' roles was as a brig for the Naval Academy---cadets undergoing punishment were required to spend all time not in classes or at drills aboard the ship, sleeping in hammocks at night, for periods of up to two months. This practice was discontinued in 1940, to be replaced with confinement to rooms in Bancroft Hall. Other roles filled by the Reina Mercedes included service as a berthing barge for enlisted personnel assigned to the Academy during World War II, a lookout and harbor control center. It was a common joke at the time to refer to the Reina Mercedes as the "fastest ship in the fleet", since she was tied "fast" to the seawall.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/15
The Spanish Air Force (Spanish: Ejército del Aire; literally, "Army of the Air") is the air force of Spain. It is one of the 3 branches of the Spanish Armed Forces and has the mission of defending the sovereignty and independence of Spain, its territorial integrity and constitutional freedoms, basically in its air space. Although Spanish Military Aviation started with a balloon force in 1896, April 10, 1910 is the date when the Spanish military aviation was formally formed by means of a Royal Decree.
On November 5, 1913, during the war with Morocco, a Spanish expeditionary squadron became the first organized military air unit to see real combat during the first organized bombing in history. During this war, the Spanish Military Aviation was divided in two: The Spanish Republic Air Forces (Fuerzas Aéreas de la República Española-FARE), created by the republican government and the National Aviation (Aviación Nacional), created by the army in revolt. At first, the republican air forces had the control of the majority of the territory using the Soviet Polikarpov I-16, but the help received by Francisco Franco from Nazi Germany (Condor Legion) and Fascist Italy (Aviazione Legionaria) changed this.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/16
The Libro de los juegos, ("Book of games"), or Libro de acedrex, dados e tablas, ("Book of chess, dice and tables") was commissioned by Alfonso X, king of León and Castile, during the 13th century and completed in 1283. It consists of 98 pages, many with color illustrations. The games covered include chess (including the earliest known European chess problems), dice, and tables (the family of games that includes backgammon). The book contains the earliest known description of some of these games, including many games imported from the Arab kingdoms.
It is one of the most important documents for researching the history of board games. The only known original is held in the library of the monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial near Madrid in Spain. The book is bound in sheepskin and is 40 cm high and 28 cm wide (16 in × 11 in). A 1334 copy is held in the library of the Historical Academy of Madrid. Alfonso was likely influenced by his contact with scholars in the Arab world.[1] Unlike many contemporary texts on the topic, he does not engage the games in the text with moralistic arguments; instead, he portrays them in an astrological context
Portal:Spain/Selected article/17
There have been tanks in the Spanish Army since French FT-17s were delivered in 1919. These were used in the Rif War and participated in the first amphibious landing with tanks. In 1925, the Spanish Army began to produce its own tank, based on the FT-17, but it was never put into mass production. During the Spanish Civil War, the two opposing armies received many tanks from foreign powers. The war proved inconclusive in regards to the proof of mechanized warfare, despite attempts by foreign advisers and soldiers to use newly devised theories. Afterwards, Spain began to manufacture a light tank, known as the Verdeja, but the project was a failure. In 1953, the United States agreed to supply tanks including the M48 Patton (pictured) but after a dispute about the tanks' use Spain began to look elsewhere for further tanks, including the AMX-30E. Renewed plans for a Spanish tank (the Lince program) failed due to financial problems; instead Spain modernized the AMX-30Es and procured American M60 Patton tanks. In 1994, Spain began negotiating with Germany to purchase the Leopard 2, procuring 108 Leopard 2A4s and building 219 Leopard 2Es in Spain; these are still in use.
Portal:Spain/Selected article/18
Portal:Spain/Selected article/18
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