See Also: Honorius III(encyclopedia)
Bolivar(tourism)
bolivar(dictionary)
Bolivar Gold(finance)
Bolivar hotels(tourism)
Bolivar, Simon(dictionary)
Bolivar Peak(encyclopedia)
Ciudad Bolivar(tourism)
Bolivar (as used in expressions)(encyclopedia)
Bolivar, Simon(encyclopedia)

Bolivar, Simon (sh) and Honorius III (sh)


Bolivar, Simon (sh)




known as The Liberator

born July 24, 1783, Caracas, New Granada
died Dec. 17, 1830, near Santa Maria, Colombia

South American soldier and statesman who led the revolutions against Spanish rule in New Granada (now Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador), Peru, and Upper Peru (now Bolivia).

The son of a Venezuelan aristocrat, Bolivar received a European Education. Influenced by European rationalism, he joined Venezuela's independence movement and became a prominent political and military leader. The revolutionaries expelled Venezuela's Spanish governor (1810) and declared the nation's independence in 1811. The young republic was defeated by the Spanish in 1814, and Bolivar went into exile. In 1819 he undertook a daring attack on New Granada, leading some 2,500 men over routes considered impassable. Taking the Spanish by surprise, he defeated them quickly. With the help of Antonio Sucre, he secured the independence of Ecuador in 1822. He completed Jose de San Martin's revolutionary work in Peru, freeing that country in 1824. On Bolivar's orders, Sucre liberated Upper Peru (1825). As president of both Colombia (1821-30) and Peru (1823-29), Bolivar oversaw the creation in 1826 of a league of Hispanic American states, but the new states soon began warring among themselves. Less successful at ruling countries than at liberating them, Bolivar exiled himself and died on his way to Europe.


Simon Bolivar, detail of an engraving by C.G. Childs.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.


Honorius III (sh)




orig. Cencio Savelli

born Rome
died March 18, 1227, Rome

Pope (1216-27).

He extended Innocent III's policies on church reform and the recovery of the Holy Land, proclaiming a Crusade to regain Jerusalem in 1216 (see Crusades). He crowned Frederick II as Holy Roman emperor (1220) but threatened to excommunicate him if he failed to join the Crusade. Honorius also undertook a Crusade against the Moors in Spain (1218) and settled the Barons' War in England (1223). He continued the Albigensian Crusade against the heretics of southern France. He approved the Dominican, Franciscan, and Carmelite orders and authorized the first official book of canon law.