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It has been
conjectured, but on insufficient evidence, that
the Phoenicians discovered Madeira at a very early
period. Pliny mentions certain Purple or Mauretanian
Islands, the position of which with reference
to the Fortunate Islands or Canaries might seem
to indicate Madeira islands. Plutarch (Sertorius,
75 AD) referring to the military commander Quintus
Sertorius (d. 72 BC), relates that after his return
to Cadiz following a military reverse in Mauretania,
"he met seamen recently arrived from Atlantic
islands, two in number, divided from one another
only by a narrow channel and distant from the
coast of Africa 10,000 furlongs. They are called
Isles of the Blest." The estimated distance
from Africa, and the closeness of the two islands,
seem to indicate Madeira and Porto Santo.
There is
a romantic story, of doubtful truth, to the effect
that two lovers, Robert Machim and Anna d'Arfet,
fleeing from England to France in 1346, were driven
off their course by a violent storm, and cast
on the coast of Madeira at the place subsequently
named Machico, in memory of one of them. On the
evidence of a portolan dated 1351, preserved at
Florence, Italy, it would appear that Madeira
had been discovered long previous to that date
by Portuguese vessels under Genoese captains.
In 1419
two of the captains of Prince Henry the Navigator,
João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão
Vaz Teixeira, were driven by a storm to the island
called by them Porto Santo, or Holy Port, in gratitude
for their rescue from shipwreck. The next year
an expedition was sent to populate the island,
and, Madeira being described, they made for it,
and took possession on behalf of the Portuguese
crown.
The islands
started to be settled circa 1432 or 1433. In September
23, 1433, the name ILHA DA MADEIRA (Madeira Island
or "island of the wood") appears in
a map, by the first time, in a document.
In 1921,
the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Charles I was deported
to Madeira, after an unsuccessful coup d'état.
He died there one year later.
In 1976,
following the democratic revolution of 1974, Portugal
granted autonomy to Madeira.
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