History
The first known settlements on the bay were those of the Goajiros, who still are present in large numbers, but have re-settled in the western boundary area with Colombia. The first European to discover the bay was Alonso de Ojeda on August 24, 1499, on a voyage with Amerigo Vespucci (the same one for which the American continents were named).
Legend has it that upon entering the lake, Ojeda's expedition found groups of indigenous huts, built over stilts on water ("palafitos" in Spanish), and interconnected by boardwalks on stilts, with each other and with the lake shore. The stilt houses reminded Vespucci of the city of Venice, (Italian: Venezia), so he named the region "Venezuela," meaning "little Venice" in Italian. The word has the same meaning in Spanish, where the suffix -uela is used as a diminutive term (e.g., plaza / plazuela, cazo / cazuela); thus, the term's original sense would have been that of a "little Venice". (Examples of palafitos can still be found in "Santa Rosa", an area in the city of Maracaibo.)
Although the Vespucci story remains the most popular and accepted version of the origin of the country's name, a different reason for the name comes up in the account of Martín Fernández de Enciso, a member of the Vespucci and Ojeda crew. In his work Summa de Geografía, he states that they found an indigenous population who called themselves the "Veneciuela," which suggests that the name "Venezuela" may have evolved from the native word.
The port town of Maracaibo was founded in 1529 on the western side. In July 1821, the bay was the site of the Battle of Lake Maracaibo, an important battle in the Venezuelan War of Independence. Oil production began in the surrounding basin in 1914, with wells drilled by Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij, a predecessor of Royal Dutch Shell.
On April 6, 1964, at 11:45 pm, the supertanker Esso Maracaibo, loaded with 236,000 barrels (37,500 m3) of crude oil, suffered a major electrical failure, so that control of steering was lost. Thus it collided with pier #31 of the two-year-old General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge across the mouth of the lake. A 259 metre section of the bridge roadway fell into the water with a portion coming to rest across the tanker just a few feet from the ship's superstructure. Fortunately, no oil spill occurred, and there were no deaths or serious injuries on the tanker, but seven motorists and passengers in vehicles crossing the bridge were killed.
Read more about this topic: Lake Maracaibo
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