A Short History Of Intramuros

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A Short History of Intramuros, its Past and Present Denizens & other Curiosities “An account in which the events, places, and people of the ever loyal and distinguished city of Intramuros under its resplendent domain are told. The year of Our Lord 2010” The Spaniards, bless their ignorant souls, had this skewered view of the world that went something like “somos o no somos” that roughly translates for purposes of this essay as “are we Catholics or aren’t we?” This led to all kinds of trouble for them and unfortunately for us too. To be fair and just and politically correct (the ultimate oxymoron) and go back to the beginning, the Catholic King of Spain, Carlos I, funded Portuguese captain, Fernao de Magalhaes’s voyage (nobody could pronounce his name in Madrid so they hispanized it to Fernando de Magallanes which still proved too difficult for the Gringos who in turn Americanized it to Ferdinand Magellan) to the Orient looking for new worlds to conquer and spices to sell. Well, it’s true they also wanted to “save” souls even if the souls didn't particularly care to be saved except probably from the Spaniards. Fernando didn’t exactly find spices but instead met up with a Cebuano datu, Lapu Lapu in a Mactan beach and drowned in full armor. Apparently nobody had warned him that swimming in your plate armor and medals, even if you’re showing off is a risky business. As a matter of fact out of his five ships only one hobbled back to Spain with only 19 men out of the original 250 which is I think a pretty bad return on investment. Several years ensued, forty four to be exact, before the Spaniards finally sent another expedition this time successful under Miguel Lopez de Legaspi nicknamed El Adelantado which description sort of implies that he was in the habit of

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