Venezuela looks ahead

Description: Columbus’s first landfall on continental America was in Venezuela. The colonists who followed settled at first only on the narrow coastal strip. Later the lure of gold led them inland. At the beginning of the 19th century a patriot rose up in Venezuela who inspired the struggle for independence from Spain. This fight for independence, ravaged and impoverished the land. Her present prosperity dates to the development of her oil resources in the last thirty years, and tremendous efforts are being made to recover in a few years the leeway of a century.