A few months ago we spent the day at Mt Brasil. Mt. Brasil is small mountain along the coast near the town of Angra. Angra is on the southern border of the island. The Azores, specifically Terceira, were pretty important during the time of the discovery and exploration of the Americas when explorers were making multiple trips back and forth between Europe. They used the islands as a port for rest and resupplying. Many battles took place between invading Spanish and later during the civil war. Mt. Brasil was used during theses times as a look-out for approaching fleets and also by whalers. The whalers would sit a look-out up on the island and use fire signals to signal to the whaling ships in the port when groups of whales were passing. I'm not real sure about exactly when the guns were placed but we think it was in the late 1930's to early 1940's by a Portuguese dictator and then maintained by the US/British. These things were huge-as you can tell. You can see some of the original fortification built by the Spanish up on the mountain. It was built there to protect the Spanish from the local Portuguese they were governing who obviously didn't wan them there.
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