74 Facts About Simon Bolivar

Simon Jose Antonio de la Santisima Trinidad Bolivar y Palacios was a Venezuelan military and political leader who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia to independence from the Spanish Empire.

Simon Bolivar is known colloquially as El Libertador, or the Liberator of America.

Simon Bolivar was born in Caracas in the Captaincy General of Venezuela into a wealthy criollo family.

Simon Bolivar was educated abroad and lived in Spain, as was common for men of upper-class families in his day.

From 1803 to 1805, Simon Bolivar embarked on a grand tour that ended in Rome, where he swore to end the Spanish rule in the Americas.

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In 1807, Simon Bolivar returned to Venezuela and proposed gaining Venezuelan independence to other wealthy creoles.

Simon Bolivar began his military career in 1810 as a militia officer in the Venezuelan War of Independence, fighting Spanish and more native Royalist forces for the first and second Venezuelan republics and the United Provinces of New Granada.

Simon Bolivar befriended Petion and, after promising to abolish slavery in South America, received military support from Haiti.

Simon Bolivar was successively removed from his offices until, after a failed assassination attempt, he resigned the presidency of Colombia and died of tuberculosis in 1830.

Simon Bolivar is regarded as a national and cultural icon throughout Latin America; the nations of Bolivia and Venezuela and their currencies are named after him.

Simon Bolivar's legacy is diverse and far-reaching both within Latin America and beyond and he has been memorialized all over the world in the form of public art or street names and in popular culture.

Those children – Maria Antonia was born on 1777, and Juana was born on 1779, and Juan Vicente was born on 1781, and and Simon Bolivar – were raised separately from each other and their mother, and, following colonial custom, by African house slaves; Simon Bolivar was raised by a slave named Hipolita whom he viewed as both a motherly and fatherly figure.

Simon Bolivar came to loathe Carlos, who had no interest in Bolivar other than his inheritance, and neglected his studies.

Simon Bolivar promised the Real Audiencia that he would focus on his education, and was taught full-time by Rodriguez and the Venezuelan intellectuals Andres Bello and Francisco de Andujar.

Uztariz accepted and Simon Bolivar, who moved into his residence in February 1800, was thoroughly educated.

Early in 1802, Simon Bolivar traveled to Paris while he awaited permission to return to Madrid, which was granted in April.

Simon Bolivar was devastated by del Toro's death, and later told Louis Peru de Lacroix, one of his generals and biographers, that he swore to never remarry.

Simon Bolivar arrived in Spain in December 1803, then traveled to Madrid to console his father-in-law.

From Milan, they traveled down the Po Valley to Venice, then to Florence, and then finally Rome, where Simon Bolivar met among others Pope Pius VII, the French writer Germaine de Stael, and Humboldt again.

Simon Bolivar began to meet with other creole elites to discuss independence from Spain.

Simon Bolivar, who did not sign the petition, was not arrested but was warned to cease hosting or attending seditious meetings.

Absent from Caracas for the coup, the Simon Bolivar brothers returned to the city and offered their services to the Supreme Junta as diplomats.

In May 1810, Juan Vicente was sent to the United States to buy weapons, while Simon Bolivar secured a place in a diplomatic mission to Great Britain with the lawyer Luis Lopez Mendez and Andres Bello by paying for the mission.

Simon Bolivar nonetheless fought in the Valencia campaign as part of del Toro's militia and was selected by Miranda to bring news of its recapture to Caracas, where he fruitlessly argued for more punitive and forceful campaigning against the Royalists.

Simon Bolivar, who was still in the area of Caracas, rushed into the city to participate in the rescue of survivors and exhumation of the dead.

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Miranda, retreating east with a disintegrating army, ordered Simon Bolivar to assume command of the coastal city of Puerto Cabello and its fortress, which contained Royalist prisoners and most of the republic's remaining arms and ammunition.

Simon Bolivar escaped La Guaira early on 31 July 1812 and rode to Caracas, where he hid from arrest in the home of Esteban Fernandez de Leon, the Marquis de Casa Leon.

In particular, Simon Bolivar called for the disparate New Granadan republics to help him invade Venezuela to prevent a Royalist invasion of New Granada.

Simon Bolivar arrived on the Magdalena River on 21 December and, in spite of orders from Labatut to not act without his direction, launched an offensive that secured control of the Magdalena River by 8 January 1813.

In early March 1813, Simon Bolivar set up his headquarters in Cucuta and sent Jose Felix Ribas to request permission to invade Venezuela.

On 2 January 1814, Simon Bolivar was made the dictator of a Second Republic of Venezuela, which retained the weaknesses of the first republic.

Simon Bolivar arrived in Barcelona on 2 August, but following another Royalist victory at Aragua de Barcelona on 17 August 1814, he moved to Cumana.

On 12 December, Simon Bolivar captured Cundinamarca's capital, Bogota, and was given command of New Granada's armies in January 1815.

Simon Bolivar next grappled with del Castillo, who had taken control of Cartagena.

Simon Bolivar arrived in Kingston, Jamaica, on 14 May 1815 and, like his earlier exile on Curacao, ruminated on the fall of the Venezuelan and New Granadan republics.

Simon Bolivar wrote extensively, requesting assistance from Britain and corresponding with merchants based in the Caribbean.

Simon Bolivar tentatively accepted and that night escaped assassination by his manservant, who mistakenly killed Simon Bolivar's paymaster as part of a Spanish plot.

Simon Bolivar left Jamaica eight days later, arrived in Les Cayes on 24 December, and on 2 January 1816 was introduced to Alexandre Petion, President of the Republic of Haiti by a mutual friend.

Simon Bolivar next moved to the mainland, where he declared the emancipation of all slaves and annulled of the Decree of War to the Death.

Arismendi wrote to Simon Bolivar and dispatched New Granadan Republican Francisco Antonio Zea to convince him to return.

Simon Bolivar wrote to the Republican caudillos, especially Jose Antonio Paez, who controlled most of the western Llanos, to unite under his leadership.

On 8 January 1817, Simon Bolivar marched towards Caracas but was turned back and then pursued to Barcelona by a larger Royalist force.

Simon Bolivar met Piar on 4 April, promoted him to the rank of general of the army, and then joined a force of Piar's troops besieging the city of Angostura on 2 May Meanwhile, Marino went east to reestablish his power base and on 8 May convened a congress of ten men, including Brion and Zea, that named Marino as supreme commander of the Republican forces and reinstated the 1811 constitution.

Simon Bolivar then sent Sucre to reconcile with Marino, who pledged loyalty to Simon Bolivar on 26 January 1818.

Simon Bolivar then gained recognition as supreme leader from Paez, whom he met at San Juan de Payara on 30 January 1818.

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In May, as the annual wet season was beginning in the Llanos, Simon Bolivar met with his officers and revealed his intention to invade New Granada, which he had prepared for by sending Santander to build up Republican forces in Casanare Province in August 1818.

Simon Bolivar entered Casanare Province with his army on 4 June 1819, then met up with Santander at Tame, Arauca, on 11 June.

Simon Bolivar met with Santander in Bogota in March 1820, then rode to Cucuta and inspected Republican forces in northern Colombia over April and May 1820.

In February 1821, as Simon Bolivar was traveling from Bogota to Cucuta in anticipation of the opening of a new congress there, he learned that Royalist-controlled Maracaibo had defected to Colombia and been occupied by Urdaneta.

In October 1821, after congress empowered him to secure Ecuador for Colombia, Simon Bolivar assembled an army in Bogota that departed on 13 December 1821.

Simon Bolivar's advance was halted by illness and a Pyrrhic victory in southern Colombia on 7 April 1822.

Simon Bolivar met the Ecuadorian Republican Manuela Saenz, the wife of a British merchant, with whom he began a lasting affair.

From Quito, Simon Bolivar traveled to Guayaquil in anticipation of a meeting with San Martin to discuss the city's status and rallied support for its annexation by Colombia.

Simon Bolivar responded by sending an army under Sucre to assist, and requested permission from the Colombian congress to lead troops into Peru himself.

When Simon Bolivar arrived, Peru was split between four Republican armies and two rival presidents, Jose de la Riva Aguero and Jose Bernardo de Tagle; the Royalists, based out of the region of Upper Peru; and Simon Bolivar, whom the Peruvian congress invested with supreme military authority.

In November 1823, a faction of officers serving Riva Aguero, who plotted with the Royalists against Simon Bolivar, mutinied and handed him to Simon Bolivar, who exiled Riva Aguero from Peru.

Simon Bolivar next struggled to build an army in Peru with few resources, and without support from Colombia or its allies.

On 1 January 1824, Simon Bolivar collapsed with a fever and was bedridden for two months.

In May 1824, after learning of a rebellion against the Viceroy, Jose de la Serna, by conservative Royalist Pedro Antonio Olaneta, Simon Bolivar began advancing in Peru, and defeated Canterac at the Battle of Junin on 6 August.

Shortly after arriving in Lima, Simon Bolivar began a siege of Callao that lasted until January 1826, and sent Sucre into Upper Peru to eliminate Olaneta, which he accomplished in April 1825.

In early 1825, Simon Bolivar resigned from his offices in Colombia and Peru, but neither nation's congress accepted his resignation; on 10 February 1825, the Peruvian congress extended his dictatorship for another year.

From Potosi, Simon Bolivar traveled to Chuquisaca, where he promised the Bolivian congress that he would have a constitution ready by the body's next meeting in May 1826.

Simon Bolivar arrived in Lima on 10 February 1826 and then dispatched his draft of the Bolivian constitution to Sucre on 12 May This constitution, ratified by the Bolivian congress in July 1826 and widely distributed through the Atlantic world, was controversial because of its abolition of slavery and provision for a president for life who chose their successor.

Simon Bolivar resigned the presidency on 27 April 1830, intending to leave the country for exile in Europe.

On 17 December 1830, at the age of 47, Simon Bolivar died of tuberculosis in the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino in Santa Marta.

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Simon Bolivar's remains were buried in the cathedral of Santa Marta.

Later on, in July 2010, Simon Bolivar's body was ordered to be exhumed to advance the investigations; however, in July 2011, international forensics experts released their report, claiming there was no proof of poisoning or any other unnatural cause of death.

Simon Bolivar was an admirer of both the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

Simon Bolivar felt that the U S had been established in land especially fertile for democracy.

Simon Bolivar was an avid reader, particularly of French Enlightenment philosophy.

In Venezuela, Simon Bolivar left behind a militarist legacy with multiple governments utilizing the memory, image and written legacy of Simon Bolivar as important parts of their political messages and propaganda.

Simon Bolivar disapproved of the excesses of "party spirit" and "factions", which led to an anti-political environment in Venezuela.

Simon Bolivar's birthday is a public holiday in Venezuela and Bolivia.

Several cities in Spain, especially in the Basque Country, have constructed monuments to Simon Bolivar, including a large monument in Bilbao and a comprehensive Venezuelan government-funded museum in Cenarruza-Puebla de Simon Bolivar, his ancestral hometown.