Havana is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. It is the most populous city, the largest by area, and the second largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The population in 2002 was 2,137,847 inhabitants, and its area is 728.26 km2 (281.18 sq mi) for the capital city side and 8,475.57 km2 for the metropolitan zone.
Cádiz is a city in Spain and the capital of the Province of Cádiz, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula off the Atlantic Ocean separated from neighbouring San Fernando by a narrow isthmus.
The Basílica Menor of San Francisco de Asís is a Catholic minor basilica and Franciscan convent in the district of Old Havana, Cuba. Its construction began in 1548 and lasted until 1591, although it was inaugurated in 1575, it was badly damaged by storms in 1680 and 1692, and by a hurricane that broke down its tower in 1694. Started in its current form in 1716, it was completely completed almost 200 years later, with a series of structural reforms from 1731 to 1738.
Dominic Serres (1722–1793), also known as Dominic Serres the Elder, was a French-born painter strongly associated with the English school of painting, and with paintings with a naval or marine theme. Such were his connections with the English art world, that he became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, and was later briefly its librarian.
Admiral Sir Hugh Francis Paget Sinclair,, known as Quex Sinclair, was a British intelligence officer. He was Director of British Naval Intelligence between 1919 and 1921, and he subsequently helped to set up the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ.
The Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro(English: Castle of the Three Kings of Morro), also known as Castillo del Morro(Morro Castle), is a fortress guarding the entrance to the Havana harbor. The design is by the Italian engineer Battista Antonelli (1547–1616). Originally under the control of Spain, the fortress was captured by the British in 1762, returned to Spain under the Treaty of Paris (1763) a year later. The Morro Castle was the main defense in the Havana harbor until La Cabaña was completed in 1774.
Old Havana is the city-center (downtown) and one of the 15 municipalities forming Havana, Cuba. It has the second highest population density in the city and contains the core of the original city of Havana. The positions of the original Havana city walls are the modern boundaries of Old Havana.
Havana Cathedral is one of eleven Catholic cathedrals on the island. It is located in the Plaza de la Catedral on Calle Empedrado, between San Ignacio y Mercaderes, Old Havana, Havana, Cuba. The thirty by forty-nine meters rectangular church serves as the seat of the Archdiocese of San Cristóbal de la Habana. Christopher Columbus’ remains were kept in the cathedral between 1796 and 1898 before they were taken to Seville Cathedral.
The Castillo de la Real Fuerza is a bastion fort on the western side of the harbour in Havana, Cuba, set back from the entrance, and bordering the Plaza de Armas. Originally built to defend against attack by pirates, it suffered from a poor location; it was too far inside the bay. The fort is considered to be the oldest stone fort in the Americas, and was listed in 1982 as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of "Old Havana and its Fortifications".
Events from the year 1762 in art.
Castillo San Salvador de la Punta is a fortress at the entrance to the bay in Havana, Cuba.
The siege of Havana was a successful British siege against Spanish-ruled Havana that lasted from March to August 1762, as part of the Seven Years' War. After Spain abandoned its former policy of neutrality by signing the family compact with France, resulting in a British declaration of war on Spain in January 1762, the British government decided to mount an attack on the important Spanish fortress and naval base of Havana, with the intention of weakening the Spanish presence in the Caribbean and improving the security of its own North American colonies. A strong British naval force consisting of squadrons from Britain and the West Indies, and the military force of British and American troops it convoyed, were able to approach Havana from a direction that neither the Spanish governor nor the Admiral expected and were able to trap the Spanish fleet in the Havana harbour and land its troops with relatively little resistance.
Havana Harbor is the port of Havana, the capital of Cuba, and it is the main port in Cuba. Other port cities in Cuba include Cienfuegos, Matanzas, Manzanillo, and Santiago de Cuba.
The Captaincy General of Cuba was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire created in 1607 as part of Habsburg Spain attempt to better defend and administer its Caribbean possessions. The reform also established captaincies general in Puerto Rico, Guatemala and Yucatán.
Havana was founded in the sixteenth century displacing Santiago de Cuba as the island's most important city when it became a major port for Atlantic shipping, particularly the Spanish treasure fleet.
John Thomas Serres was an English maritime painter who enjoyed significant success, including exhibiting extensively at the Royal Academy, and was for a time Maritime Painter to King George III.
The following is a timeline of the history of Havana, Cuba.
The Vision of Saint Anthony of Padua is a 1656 oil on canvas painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, commissioned by the chapter of Seville Cathedral as the altarpiece for its chapel of Saint Anthony of Padua, where it still hangs. It replaced an altarpiece by Bernardo Simón de Pineda.
Napoleon on the Bellerophon is an 1815 painting by the British artist Charles Lock Eastlake. It depicts the deposed Emperor of France Napoleon Bonaparte as a prisoner aboard the Royal Navy ship-of-the-line HMS Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound. Eastlake was a young, largely unknown artist at the time, but later went on to become President of the Royal Academy. It is also known by the longer title Napoleon on Board the Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound.
Portrait of the Earl of Sandwich is a 1783 painting by the English artist Thomas Gainsborough depicting a full-length view of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. Sandwich had recently left the post of First Lord of the Admiralty which he had held three times since 1748, having overseen British naval operations during the American War of Independence. Sandwich is shown against the backdrop of Greenwich Hospital and holds a plan of James Stuart's design for infirmary completed in the 1760s during Sandwich's earlier term as First Lord.
