• In his Natural History of AD77, Pliny mentions the Maderian archipelago, calling them the `Purple Islands’ after the purple dye obtained from the sap of the island’s dragon trees.
• `Madeira’s seasons
  are the youth, maturity
  and old age of a
  never-ending, still-
  beginning Spring’
  H N Coleridge -Madeira: Six Months in the West Indies (1825)
• Madeira means “wood” in Portuguese and the island was so named because of its great concentrations of laurel trees.
• Madeira’s famous include: Christopher Columbus who stayed on Porto Santo; Napoleon Bonaparte who was an involuntary visitor to Madeira in 1815, when the ship taking him to exile on St Helena moored in Funchal harbour and Winston Churchill, who spent a holiday on the island, painting the scenery. Madeira is described by Churchill as being “warm, paintable, bathable, comfortable, flowery”.
• Although English is widely spoken in Madeira, the population is nearly all of mainland Portuguese descent.
• Maderia’s heyday was during the 15th Century when the island was used as a trading post between Africa, Europe, Asia and America. Christopher Columbus based himself here, as did the Flemish, who traded works of art for sugar.
• Portsmouth, HMS Endurance’s home port in the UK has a historical link to Madeira. In 1662, Charles II married Catherine of Braganza in the Garrison Church, Portsmouth. By doing this, Charles II gained trading concessions for English merchants, which paved the way for their domination of the Madeira wine trade.

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