Mexico City

Mexico City (Spanish: Ciudad de México  audio  American Spanish: [sjuˈða(ð) ðe ˈméxiko]; abbreviated as "CDMX") is the capital of Mexico. Mexico City is the country's largest city as well as its most important political, cultural, educational and financial center.

As an "alpha" global city Mexico City is one of the most important financial centers in the Americas. It is located in the Valley of Mexico (Valle de México), a large valley in the high plateaus at the center of Mexico, at an altitude of 2,240 metres (7,350 ft). The city consists of sixteen municipalities (previously called boroughs).

The 2009 estimated population for the city proper was around 8.84 million people, with a land area of 1,485 square kilometres (573 sq mi). According to the most recent definition agreed upon by the federal and state governments, the Greater Mexico City population is 21.2 million people, making it the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere, the eleventh-largest agglomeration, and the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world.

1968 Summer Olympics

The 1968 Summer Olympics (Spanish: Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City, Mexico, in October 1968.

These were the first Olympic Games to be staged in Latin America and the first to be staged in a Spanish-speaking country. They were also the first Games to be held in a developing country (previously, all Olympic Games had been held in First World countries).

The 1968 Games were the third to be held in autumn, after the 1956 Games in Melbourne and the 1964 Games in Tokyo. The Mexican Student Movement of 1968 happened concurrently and the Olympic Games were correlated to the government's repression.

Host city selection

On October 18, 1963, at the 60th IOC Session in Baden-Baden, West Germany, Mexico City finished ahead of bids from Detroit, Buenos Aires and Lyon to host the Games.

Olympic torch relay

The 1968 torch relay recreated the route taken by Christopher Columbus to the New World, journeying from Greece through Italy and Spain to San Salvador Island, Bahamas, and then on to Mexico. American sculptor James Metcalf, an expatriate in Mexico, won the commission to forge the Olympic torch for the 1968 Summer Games.

Mexico City (film)

Mexico City is a 2000 Canadian film directed and co-written by Richard Shepard. The plot revolves around a woman who has to find her brother who has gone missing in Mexico City.

Plot

Mexican wine

Mexican wine and wine making began with the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, when they brought vines from Europe to modern day Mexico, the oldest wine-growing region in the Americas. Although there were indigenous grapes before the Spanish conquest, the Spaniards found that Spanish grapevines also did very well in the colony of New Spain (Mexico) and by the 17th century wine exports from Spain to the New World fell. In 1699, Charles II of Spain prohibited wine making in Mexico, with the exception of wine for Church purposes. From then until Mexico’s Independence, wine was produced in Mexico only on a small scale. After Independence, wine making for personal purposes was no longer prohibited and production rose, especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many other European immigrant groups helped with the comeback of wine in Mexico. However, the Mexican Revolution set back wine production, especially in the north of the country. Wine production in Mexico has been rising in both quantity and quality since the 1980s, although competition from foreign wines and 40% tax on the product makes competing difficult within Mexico. Mexico is not traditionally a wine-drinking country, but rather prefers beer, tequila and mezcal. Interest in Mexican wine, especially in the major cities and tourists areas (along with the introduction into the US on a small scale), has grown along with Mexican wines’ reputation throughout the world. Many Mexican companies have received numerous awards. Various wine producers from Mexico have won international awards for their products.

Mexico (barque)

Mexico was a barque that was wrecked off Southport on 9 December 1886. She was repaired only to be lost in Scottish waters in 1890.

Shipwreck

On 9 December 1886, the Mexico was on its way from Liverpool to Guayaquil, Ecuador when it was caught in a storm. Lifeboats were launched from Lytham, St. Annes and Southport to rescue the crew. The Lytham lifeboat Charles Biggs, which was on her maiden rescue, rescued the twelve crew but both the St. Annes lifeboat Laura Janet and the Southport lifeboat Eliza Fernley were capsized, and 27 of the 29 crew were drowned. To date, this is the worst loss of RNLI crew in a single incident.Mexico came ashore off Birkdale, opposite the Birkdale Palace Hotel.

Aftermath

Sixteen women were left widows, and fifty children lost their fathers. Queen Victoria and the Kaiser sent their condolences to the families of the lifeboatmen. An appeal was launched to raise money to provide a memorial to those killed, and the organisation by Sir Charles Macara of the first street collections in Manchester in 1891 led to the first flag days. The disaster has a permanent memorial in Lytham St. Annes lifeboat house. An appeal has been launched by the Lytham St. Annes Civic Society for the restoration of four of the memorials.

Mexico (novel)

Mexico is a novel by James A. Michener published in 1992.

The main action of Mexico takes place in Mexico over a three-day period in the fictional city of Toledo in 1961. The occasion is the annual bullfighting festival, at which two matadors — one an acclaimed hero of the sport, the other a scrapping contender — are prepared to fight to the death for fame and glory.

Through the memories of the book's narrator, Norman Clay, an American journalist of Spanish and Indian descent, Michener provides plenty of historical background, including a depiction of the gruesome human sacrifices that took place hundreds of years before on the city's periphery. The story focuses on bullfighting, but also provides great insight into Mexican culture. The reader follows the bulls from their breeding to their "sorting" to the pageantry and spectacle of the bullring, where picadors and banderilleros prepare the bull for the entrance of the matador with his red cape. The author creates one of his most memorable characters in the bullfighting "critic" Leon Ledesma, a flamboyant sportswriter who elevates bullfighting into an art form through his grandiloquent essays.