Beeeeeeeeep

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system.

If this had been an actual emergency, could we have told you where to go, Eggy?

<grin>

Bhodi, for you I would go anywhere

Anywhere Eggy..even here?http://home.att.net/~sesayf/James_Traub.htm

Well if you consider that the country was discovered and named by the portuguese... like most of africa or indeed the world...

Portugal led the European world in sea exploration during the fifteenth century. The golden age of discovery for Portugal lasted almost a century until the Dutch eventually seized trade routes from them. During the height of their years of exploration, the Portuguese were attempting to find a route around Africa into the Indian Ocean and eventually trade with India and the Far East.

In the fourteenth century, Portugal managed to drive the Moors out. Muslims (Moors) had controlled the better part of Portugal and Spain for centuries. In 1415, the Portuguese captured the Moorish city of Ceuta in the northern coast of Africa. From this time forward, Portugal continued to expand its influence on the western coast of Africa in order to outflank the Moors and spread Christianity. During this timeframe, stories about a Christian king named Prestor John were circulating throughout Europe. Portuguese leaders hoped to find this legendary king to gain his support; but he did not exist. Since overland routes to Asia were blocked by Ottoman Turks, Portuguese mariners began their slow and persistent progress down the coast of Africa in search for gold and trade routes to the east.



The Portuguese pioneered the European exploration of the Atlantic Ocean. By the time that John Cabot returned to England in 1497 with news of the "new founde isle", the main focus of Portuguese maritime activity was their trade along the west African coast and on to India. But at the same time, there was a long-standing Portuguese interest in what lay to the west, and they were as interested as anyone else in a direct westerly route to Asia. Indeed, some historians think that Portuguese mariners may have reached Newfoundland before Cabot.

In addition, the Portuguese Crown reckoned it had territorial rights in the area visited by Cabot. In 1493, the Pope - assuming international jurisdiction - had divided lands discovered, or about to be discovered in what would later be called America, between Spain and Portugal. The next year, in the Treaty of Tordesillas, these two kingdoms decided that the dividing line would be drawn north-south, 370 leagues (1800 kilometres) west of the Cape Verde Islands. Land to the west would be Spanish, to the east Portuguese. Given the uncertain geography of the day, this seemed to give the "new founde isle" to Portugal. On the 1502 Cantino map, Newfoundland appears on the Portuguese side of the line (as does Brazil).There were good reasons for Portuguese mariners to follow in Cabot's wake.

João Fernandes

The first of these was João Fernandes a small landowner (lavrador) on the island of Terceira in the Azores. The details of his life and voyages are vague and uncertain, but it is known that he had business connections with the port of Bristol, that he was given a royal patent in 1499, and that he made one or more voyages to the New World. It is possible that in 1500 he reached what we know as Greenland, and called it Tiera del Lavrador. The name later migrated south to what is now called Labrador. Fernandes then joined a Bristol syndicate, and it is thought that he was lost on a voyage to America in 1501. The syndicate seems to have continued to operate for a few years, with royal approval.

/clap
I vote Maerl Underthorn for Chief Google Officer of the SL forums.

google? whats google? <grin> MUhahahahaha

A google is the square root of a googleplex.

googleplex
"goo-gl plex"

a google is 1 with 100 zeros after it. A googleplex has a google zeros after it.

i want to get laid a google....no a googleplex times =)

Recommend for deletion

Hmm, I thought a googleplex was a google times a google. Oh well.



Well then, Maerl...we better get started.

A Googleplex is a building where Googles live.

Actually its Googol and Googolplex.
http://www.google.com/corporate/index.html

Short definition and history of the googol:
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictG.html#googol

pop...poppop...pop