The epithet do Heroísmo ("of Heroism", "the Heroic") was granted to the city by Maria II to commemorate its citizens' successful defense of the island against a Miguelist assault in 1829.

[2] Some claim that Angra was founded by Álvaro Martins, who sailed with Didrik Pining on his expedition to the New World, and with Bartolomeu Dias on his voyage around the Cape of Good Hope.

Others contend that Angra was founded in 1450 or 1451 by Jácome de Bruges, a Fleming in the service of Prince Henry the Navigator, who recruited farmers, fishermen, and merchants in the Low Countries to colonize the Azores.

The site chosen by the first settlers was a ridgeline, which opened, like an amphitheatre, onto two small bays, separated by a peninsula, at the head of which stood the extinct volcano of Monte Brasil.

One of these coves was deep enough (around 40 m or 130 ft) to provide an anchorage for large vessels, and it had the further advantage of being sheltered from most strong winds, except for those from the south and southeast.

In 1474, Álvaro Martins Homem ordered that the river flowing into the cove be diverted into a manmade stone-lined channel, running downhill, so that its rushing waters could be harnessed to turn the waterwheel of a mill.

During the period when Portugal was trading with its Asian, African, and South American colonies, they were responsible for the protection and welfare of the merchant fleet (and the staggering wealth represented by the cargoes in their holds) once the ships approached the last leg of their voyages in the North Atlantic.

Before Philip II of Spain had a chance to enforce his claim to the crown of Portugal, in 1580, António, Prior of Crato, an illegitimate scion of the Beja line of the House of Braganza Portuguese royal family, proclaimed himself king on 24 July 1580.

However, his rule in continental Portugal lasted only twenty days; on 25 August, he was defeated at the Battle of Alcântara by the Spanish Habsburg armies led by Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba.

Although for a time he was the monarch (minting coin and conferring titles), his government on Terceira was only recognized in the Azores, and from that place of refuge, António conducted a popular resistance movement opposed to the recognition of a foreign king.

He was supported by a number of French adventurers under Filippo di Piero Strozzi, a Florentine exile in the service of France, as well as Portuguese patriots, some of whom came to the Azores to assist him directly.

A Spanish fleet of ten warships, commanded by Pedro Valdez, bombarded Angra on 5 July 1581, then began investigating the coast of the island in search of the best landing places.

At dawn on 25 July, the first ships loaded with Spanish troops anchored in Salga Bay, about twelve kilometres east of Angra's harbour in the village of Vila de São Sebastião.

A coastwatcher, stationed at the cape called Ponta do Coelho, gave the alarm, but when the first Portuguese forces arrived about one thousand Castilians had already landed and had started to sack the surrounding villages.

In this phase of the fighting, according to local accounts of the action, a leading role was played by young and pretty Brianda Pereira who, together with other women, attacked the enemy with farm implements when she saw her house destroyed.

About midday, when the outcome of the battle was still unsettled, an Augustinian friar called Pedro, who was taking an active part in the struggle, thought of the stratagem of driving cattle against the Spaniards so as to scatter them.

Badly outnumbered, he won the Battle of Ponta Delgada on 26 July 1582, off the coast of the island of São Miguel, against a loose confederation of Portuguese, French, English, and Dutch privateers.

His supporters were subsequently defeated the following year at the Battle of Terceira, near Angra, on 27 July 1583, which allowed Philip's forces to finally occupy the Azores and complete his unification of the Crowns of Spain and Portugal.

Yet, Santa Cruz, the Spanish admiral, who was acclaimed for his victories against the House of Aviz and its partisans in the Azores, recognized that England presented a grave threat to Spain's empire, and he became a zealous advocate of war with the English.

A letter he wrote to Philip II from Angra do Heroísmo, on 9 August 1583, two weeks after the Battle of Terceira, contains the first definite suggestion of the formation of the Spanish Armada.

During the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604), the original Portuguese fortifications were redesigned by Italian military engineer Giovanni Vicenzo Casale and his assistants, since privateers, such as Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, had attacked Spanish ships and possessions.

The fort was taken, and reclaimed for Portugal: a church was constructed within the fortress in honour of Saint John the Baptist (Portuguese: São João Baptista) after 1642.

Pedro abdicated the Portuguese throne in favor of his 7-year-old daughter Maria da Glória, stipulating that she would marry her uncle Miguel when she came of age.

On June 22, 1828, liberals deposed the Azores' captain-general Manuel Vieira de Albuquerque Touvar, deporting him to the mainland and establishing a headquarters on Terceira.

On 20 September 1836, Charles Darwin, the eminent English naturalist, nearing the end of his voyage around the world aboard the research vessel HMS Beagle, arrived at the Azores and anchored at Angra.

The CSS Alabama was commissioned on 24 August 1862 just outside the harbor of Angra, and it left Terceira to begin its career as the most effective commerce raider in naval history.

Nicknamed the "Lion of Gaza", he reigned from 1884 to 28 December 1895, the day he was made prisoner by Joaquim Mouzinho de Albuquerque in the fortified village of Chaimite.

The historic centre of Angra, is located along the southern coast, encompassing the medieval city and fortified citadel that forms the volcanic cone of Monte Brasil.

After the 19th century (specifically 1879), it served as a central gathering place for concerts by the military band of the 10th Chasseur regiment, whose barracks were in the Fort of São João Baptista.

Following the personal union between Spain and Portugal, following the Dynastic Crisis, the need to protect the transit points of the Azores led to construction of several posts and redoubts along the coast of the island.