Wednesday is my night to cook dinner. But it is also a weekly opportunity for me to share some fantastic drivel—things you didn’t care you didn’t know—with you, dear reader.
July 24, 2013 was Simón Bolívar Day (also his 230th birthday). Compared to last week’s Wrongway Corrigan writeup, I have very little to say about Simón Bolívar. This is slightly ironic, considering Simón Bolívar was one of the most influential politicians in the history of the western hemisphere, while Corrigan was a crazy airplane mechanic who “accidentally” flew over 3,000 miles the wrong way. Perhaps someday I’ll write more about Bolívar, but for now Corrigan will have more coverage.
To be fair to not-so-simple Simón, I’ll give you the two paragraph opening to his Wikipedia article.
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco (24 July 1783 – 17 December 1830), commonly known as Simón Bolívar, was a Venezuelan military and political leader. Bolívar played a key role in Latin America’s successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire, and is today considered one of the most influential politicians in the history of the Americas.
Following the triumph over the Spanish monarchy, Bolívar participated in the foundation of the first union of independent nations in Hispanic-America, a republic, now known as Gran Colombia, of which he was president from 1819 to 1830. Bolívar remains regarded in Hispanic-America as a hero, visionary, revolutionary, and liberator. During his lifetime, he led Venezuela, Colombia (including Panama at the time), Ecuador, Peru (together with Don José de San Martín), and Bolivia to independence, and helped lay the foundations for democratic ideology in much of Latin America. |from Wikipedia
(it gets more exciting. keep reading after the cut)