History
Since the 16th century, La Fortaleza has acted as the residence of the Governor of Puerto Rico, making it the oldest executive mansion in continuous use in the Americas. On November 27, 1822, its traditional status as the executive mansion was made official. The fortress underwent a massive reconstruction in 1846 to change its military appearance into a palatial facade. La Fortaleza has been the residence of more than 170 governors of Puerto Rico and has hosted various dignitaries, including President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline Kennedy who stayed in La Fortaleza in 1961. King Juan Carlos of Spain and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands are among several heads of state who have stayed in La Fortaleza. In June 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama visited the mansion during a brief trip to the island.
La Fortaleza has been captured twice by invaders:
- 1598, George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, attacked San Juan.
- 1625, General Boudewijn Hendrick (Balduino Enrico) of the Netherlands invaded the city and established himself at La Fortaleza. During the Dutch retreat, the fortress and the city were set ablaze.
According to tradition, in 1898, just before the United States invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish–American War, the last Spanish governor of the island, Ricardo De Ortega, struck a longcase clock in La Fortaleza with his sword, stopping the clock and marking the time at which Spain lost control over Puerto Rico.
On October 30, 1950, there was an attempt by a few nationalists to enter La Fortaleza in what is known as the San Juan Nationalist revolt, intending to attack then-governor Luis Muñoz Marín. The 5-minute shootout resulted in four Nationalists dead: Domingo Hiraldo Resto, Carlos Hiraldo Resto, Manuel Torres Medina and Raímundo Díaz Pacheco. Three of the guards of the building, among them Lorenzo Ramos, were seriously injured.
On October 9, 1960, La Fortaleza was designated a United States National Historic Landmark.
In 1983, La Fortaleza, along with the San Juan National Historic Site, was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
On May 26, 2004, a man armed with a knife entered the mansion's mailroom located just outside the palace gates and took a receptionist hostage. The 2½ hour stand-off ended after Governor Sila María Calderón entered the building and listened as the hostage-taker read a letter.
In 2011, Puerto Rican author Giannina Braschi debuted the dramatic novel "United States of Banana," featuring climatic scenes of revolution at La Fortaleza.
Read more about this topic: La Fortaleza
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What you dont understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (18901960)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a will to renewal. This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of crisesMof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no crisis, there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)