Posted
on July 5, 2016
There
were these whole continents with all these peoples, lots of languages
and cultures and an incredible civilization; there were all these
resources and fascinating creatures and vibrant plants and yummy
foods...And Europeans swooped in with gun powder and germs and (1)
renamed everything they saw, and (2) took over everything they could.
Venezuela
may have been named by the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci, whose
first name became the name of the two continents: America. Vespucci was
said to have called the region Veneziola, or “little Venice,”
because the area around Venezuela's Lake Maracaibo reminded him of
the Italian city of canals, Venice.
Spaniards
started exploring the region with Christopher Columbus's third
voyage, in 1498, and began permanently settling the area in 1522. For
centuries Spain ruled Venezuela; the Spanish colonists subdued the
native peoples, put resistant leaders to death, converted the natives
to the Catholic religion, and established Spanish as the official
language.
However,
many Venezuelans wanted to become independent of Spain. There were
several unsuccessful uprisings. Independence was claimed on this date
in 1811, and independent republics were created and later crushed by
Spanish forces. Finally, thanks to the military leadership of Simón
Bolivar, the nation actually achieved independence from Spain in 1823
(but as part of Gran Colombia; Venezuela separated from Colombia in
1830).
Venezuela
is a land of coffee, cocoa, oil, cosmetics, and – beauty pageants!
I didn't expect the last one, but apparently Venezuela has won more
international beauty pageant titles than any other country in the
world. It is the first country to win all four of the “Big Four”
beauty pageants multiple times. Here is a list of its Big Four
titles:
Seven
Miss Universe crowns: 1979, 1981, 1986, 1996, 2008, 2009, 2013- Six Miss World crowns: 1955, 1981, 1984, 1991, 1995, 2011
- Seven Miss International crowns: 1985, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2010, 2015
- Two Miss Earth crowns: 2005, 2013
That
means that a Venezuelan woman won at least one Big Four beauty
pageant title each of these years: 1955, 1979, 1981, 1984, 1985,
1986, 1991, 1995, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009,
2010, 2011, 2013, 2015! And if you look at all the years in which a
Miss Venezuela ended as a runner-up, a finalist, or a semi-finalist,
it's easier to discuss the years that DIDN'T happen rather than ALL the
years that did.
And
these are almost all different women, mind you. It's not like having
a great sports star, like American tennis champ Serena Williams, who
has been pretty much dominating women's tennis since 2002. Venezuela
hasn't been winning all these pageants with one really amazing
contestant, but with a blizzard of highly accomplished and gorgeous
women! 
Really, I think that it must have just become a “thing” –
in Venezuela, a lot of girls and women must enter beauty contests,
work on accomplishing a lot in this field. The country as a whole
must value such pageants and the young women who win them.
To
learn more about Venezuela, check out this recent post.
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