October 9 – Independence Day in Guayaquil, Ecuador

nPostednon October 9, 2015

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nInnEcuador’s fight to break free of its Spanish rulers, one city brokenaway before the others—and declared itself an independentncity-state.

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nThengood news is that this ousting of the Spanish authorities was almostnbloodless. The Spaniards were arrested, not killed. Quite civilized –nespecially for the time.

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nThatnwas October 9, 1820. Since then Guayaquil (which is Ecuador’s largestncity and most important port, but NOT its capital city) has beenncelebrating its own independence in October as well as thenindependence of the entire nation in August 10. Here are two photos from a recent Guayaquil Independence parade:

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nTonlearn more about Guayaquil, check out this recent post.

nThe Equator in Ecuador

Younprobably know that the name Ecuadornrefers to the Equator, the imaginary line that circles the middle ofnthe Earth. n

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nThatnmeans that you can stand in a certain place in Ecuador and have onenfoot in the Northern Hemisphere and the other foot in the SouthernnHemisphere.

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nDidnyou also know that the Earth bulges outward a bit in the center? Thatnmeans that the Equator is just a bit farther away from the center ofnthe Earth than places north and south of the Equator. In other words,nEarth is not a perfect sphere, but is instead an “oblate spheroid.”nn

This diagram shows what an oblate spheroid is.
Of course, Earth’s middle bulge isn’t NEARLY as
exaggerated as this one!

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\Waynback in the late 1600s, Isaac Newton suggested that Earth would be annoblate spheroid – a bit squashed at the poles and a bit swollen atnthe equator. He wasn’t able to accurately measure and check hisnhypothesis, but it turns out that the difference is about 13 milesn(21 km). Sounds like a lot, but of course this difference is swampednby the size of the Earth, which has a diameter of almost 8,000 milesn(more than 12,000 km). That’s why our planet looks pretty darnednround from space.

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nStill,nEcuador’s highest mountain, Chimborazo, is the farthest point on thenEarth’s surface from the Earth’s center. It‘snheight of 20,564nfeet – and, don’t get me wrong! That’s high! That’s higher than thenhighest peak in all of North America, Denali! – still doesn’t evennget it into the highest 100 elevations in the world. BUT, when younadd those 13 miles of the equatorial bulge – bam! Chimborazo is thenrecord holder!

nInterestinglynenough, although Spanish is the official language of Ecuador, andnEcuadornis Spanish for “Equator,” people in Ecuador don’t normally callnthe Equator by their country’s name. Too confusing, I’m sure!nInstead, they call it “Middle of the World,” or Mitadndel Mundo.

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nAtnthe Mitad del Mundo monument in Quito, people can climb to the topnand get a great vista of both hemispheres…But, it turns out, thenmonument isn’t actually built on the Equator! A mistake was made inn1982, when the monument was being constructed, and our currentntechnology is able to tell us in no uncertain terms that the actualnEquator is about 100 meters (300 feet) away from the monument!
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nWell…that’snokay! Twice the photo ops, right? People get their photo takennstraddling the false, 1982-era Equator…

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n…andnthe actual Equator.

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nAndnyou know what’s cool? You can walk along the real Equator and see anbunch of demos and experiments that show the effects of being exactlynon the Equator.

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