14 June 2019
portolano
[pawr-tl-ah-noh, pohr-]
noun, plural por·to·la·nos, por·to·la·ni [pawr-tl-ah-nee, pohr-] /ˌpɔr tl
ˈɑ ni, ˌpoʊr-/.
a descriptive atlas of the Middle Ages, giving sailing directions and providing charts showing rhumb lines and the location of ports and various coastal features.
Origin of portolano
1855–60; Italian: shipmaster’s guidebook; earlier, harbor master < Medieval Latin portulānus. See port1, -ule, -an
Also called rutter.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for portolano
Historical Examples of portolano
A sea-chart—probably a portolano —is mentioned as early as the account of the Crusade of St. Louis, in 1270.
The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea
Gomes Eannes de Azurara
Today’s quote
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
– Gilbert K. Chesterton
On this day
14 June 1158 – Munich founded by Henry the Lion on the banks of the River Isar.
14 June 1789 – The Reverend Elijah Craig becomes the first person to distill whisky from maize. The new whisky is named bourbon, because that is the county in Kentucky that Reverend Craig lived in.
14 June 1928 – birth of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Argentinian Marxist revolutionary, physician, author. Executed 9 October 1967 on the order of Bolivian President Rene Barrientos.
14 June 1936 – death of Gilbert Keith Chesterton (otherwise known as G.K. Chesterton – born 29 May 1874), English writer, lay theologian, poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, literary and art critic, biographer and owner of one of the world’s worst pompadours:
G.K. Chesterton
14 June 1937 – The USA passes the Marihuana Tax Act, which taxed the sale of cannabis.
14 June 1982 – Argentina surrenders to Great Britain after the six week Falkland’s War.
14 June 2007 – Former Ku Klux Klan member, 71 year old James Seale is found guilty of a number of charges related to the 1964 murder of two civil rights activists in Mississippi. He was sentenced to three life terms of imprisonment. His conviction was overturned the following year, before being reinstated. He died in prison in 2011.