Did you know?

* Did you know that Maputo, Mozambique’s Capital City, was once called “Lourenço Marques”? Maputo was founded in the late 18th century in a region visited (1544) by the Portuguese trader Lourenço Marques after whom it was named. In 1898 the capital was transferred from Mozambique Island (Ilha de Moçambique) to Lourenzo Marques - subsequently the city grew to become an important port serving the South African goldfields, as well as an industrial centre. The establishing of the railway concreted its importance and under the Portuguese influence, Lourenço Marques became one of Africa’s most beautiful and fashionable cities. After Mozambique achieved independence in 1975, Lourenço Marques remained the capital and was given back its original name, Maputo. *Did you know that the World and Olympic 800 metres champion, Maria de Lurdes Mutola, is from Mozambique? Maria de Lurdes Mutola was born on the 27th of October 1972, in the suburb of Chamanculo, in the outskirts of Maputo City. She began playing sport, particularly football, in her childhood, and tried to get into the boys’ football championship, since at the time women’s football was unknown in Mozambique. When she was not allowed to play in the men’s junior football matches, at the age of 14 she began to practice athletics. In 1988, she benefited from an Olympic solidarity scholarship for third world countries and went to live in Oregon, in the United States, where she attended and concluded high school. From then on she became Olympic and World Champion in the women’s 800 metres. Today she is part of the Athletes’ Commission of the International Olympic Committee and was recently appointed in Maputo as a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Youth Ambassador. * Did you know that the small island “Ilha de Moçambique” was, in the sixteenth century, a port of call on the route from Europe to the East Indies opened by the Portuguese navigator Vasco de Gama? The little island of Mozambique, which lies four kilometres off the coast of Africa just opposite Madagascar, was for hundreds of years a major centre of intercontinental maritime trade. It was occupied by Arab merchants from the tenth century until the end of the fifteenth, and in the sixteenth century it became a trading post on the sea route from Europe to the East Indies. In 1507, the Portuguese built a fortress on the island where the Customs House stands today. A later fortification that has survived is the fort of St. Sebastian, which was built between 1558 and 1620 and is inspired by Italian Renaissance military architecture. Arab, Indian and Portuguese architectural influences are blended in the port of Mozambique and in 1991, this island harbour was placed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. * Did you know that artists from Mozambique designed an unusual throne, which was made of details of weaponry and presented it to the Pope in 2002? This unusual gift was dedicated to the 10th anniversary of signing the peace agreements between the Mozambican government and the RENAMO opposition movement in Rome on October 1, 1992. The agreements put an end to the long civil war in Mozambique. The designers of the throne are members of the Maputo Art Society who have been working on the project within the framework of a campaign aiming at transforming armament and weapons into peace instruments. The campaign has been carried out by the Christian Council of Mozambique since 1995. When the campaign was launched, the local population handed in over 270,000 items of weaponry in exchange for agricultural instruments, construction materials, tractors and sewing machines.