Portal:Venezuela

Outside walls of the Santa María de la Cabeza castle

Santa María de la Cabeza castle is a colonial castle built in the seventeenth century by the Spanish monarchy in the center of the city of Cumaná, Venezuela. It was built as a replacement for the San Antonio de la Eminencia castle. Its construction was ordered by Sancho Fernando de Angulo y Sandoval, governor of the Province of Cumaná. The building was designed using the trace italienne style popular during the seventeenth century, with a proportional geometric floor design. Bastions were used as the main defensive elements. The castle housed a garrison of 250 soldiers, and was the seat of government for the province of Cumaná.

Construction began in 1668 when Angulo y Sandoval's predecessor, Juan de Urtarte, wrote a memorandum to the King of Spain stating that the San Antonio de la Eminencia castle was unfit for defense. Several years later (and without proper authorization), Angulo y Sandoval began construction of a fortress that would be more useful for the defense of the city than the two existing fortifications. The castle underwent several renovations to repair damage caused by severe earthquakes. A 1684 quake severely damaged the castle and another in 1929 left the structure in ruins. The castle was declared a cultural and municipal asset in May 2005. (Full article...)

Manuel Trujillo Durán (8 January 1871 – 14 March 1933) was a Venezuelan photographer who pioneered film in Venezuela. Trujillo was most successful as a photographer, though he dabbled in other industries and is best remembered for his connections to the fledgling film industry in Venezuela. He became one of the first people from Latin America to learn how to show films; he was thought for many years to be the director of Venezuela's first films, and traveled through Venezuela and Colombia with projectors to introduce cinema to this part of the South American continent. (Full article...)

• October 8, 1993 — Birth of Garbiñe Muguruza, Spanish-Venezuelan tennis champion (2016, 2017) and former world #1
• October 9, 1557 — In the Venezuelan Andes, Captain Diego García de Paredes founds the village of Trujillo
• October 11, 1980 — Baruj Benacerraf wins the Nobel Prize for Medicine
• October 12, 1966 — "The Anacoco Crisis" erupts between Guyana and Venezuela over the sovereignty of the eastern part of Ankoko Island, a 28 km² river island on the Cuyuní River, part of the boundary of the disputed area of Guayana Esequiba
• October 17, 2004 — The Twin Towers of Central Park are bombed, with a resulting fire destroying the East Tower
• October 18, 1945 – A group of the Venezuelan Armed Forces stages a coup d'état against President Isaías Medina Angarita, who is overthrown by the end of the day
• October 26, 2016 — Protests marches are held after the recall referendum against the Maduro administration is suspended
• October 28, 1875 — The National Pantheon of Venezuela is inaugurated
• October 29, 1988 — The Massacre of El Amparo occurs, with 14 fisherman murdered
• October 29, 2008 — Venezuela begins its space race, with the help of China, launching the Simón Bolívar Satellite part of the Venesat-1 project
• October 30, 1817 – Simón Bolívar becomes President of the Third Republic of Venezuela

• ... that Manuel Aguirre was the first Jesuit to become a naturalized citizen of Venezuela?
• ... that Carlos Santana Tovar, who represented Amazonas in the 1952 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly, was taken hostage during the 1921 revolution and escaped only years later?
• ... that a Canadian skier was the only competitor for Venezuela at the 2026 Winter Olympics?
• ... that, according to Guyanese authorities, an oil tanker seized by the United States off the coast of Venezuela in 2025 was falsely flying Guyana's flag?
• ... that Juan de Casas, the Spanish military governor of Venezuela, cried after the French demanded that he accept a Frenchman as king?
• ... that Pedro Berroeta Morales, a diplomat and later the president of a Venezuelan television channel, has also written fiction and essays on topics from science to esotericism?

Venezuela has a wide array of universities, offering courses in a broad variety of subjects, spread between a total 23 public and 24 private universities located across several states. As a result of a Royal Decree signed by Philip V of Spain, the Central University of Venezuela—the country's oldest—was founded in 1721 as "Universidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas". The campus was originally at the now-known "Palacio de las Academias" but, in 1944, president Isaías Medina Angarita relocated it to the University City of Caracas.

The second oldest university is the University of the Andes. Formally established in 1810 as the "Real Universidad de San Buenaventura de Mérida de los Caballeros", the university began as a priest school founded by Fray Juan Ramos de Lora [es] in the city of Mérida in 1785. The University of Zulia—the third-oldest university—was founded in 1891 when the Federal College of Maracaibo was converted into a university. The government ordered the closure of the university for political reasons in 1904, and it remained closed until 1946. The University of Carabobo is the last to be founded before the twentieth century by being established in 1892 and dating back to 1833 when the College of Carabobo was created by presidential decree. (Full article...)

27 October 2026 – War on drugs

A bomb explodes near a bridge in Cúcuta, Colombia, at the border with Venezuela, injuring four police officers. (AP)

25 October 2026 – Crisis in Venezuela

Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado announces she has returned to Venezuela from exile. (CNN)