The plazas de soberanía (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈplaθaz ðe soβeɾaˈni.a], literally "places of sovereignty") are the current Spanish sovereign territories in continental North Africa bordering Morocco. The name refers to the fact that these territories have been a part of Spain since the formation of the modern Spanish State (1492-1556), to distinguish them from 19th and 20th Century colonialism. They are a part of Spain in all respects, and therefore also a part of the European Union and the Schengen Area.

Historically, a distinction was made between the so-called major sovereign territories, comprising the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, and the minor sovereign territories, referring to a number of smaller enclaves and islands along the coast. In the present, the term refers mainly to the latter.

Following the conquest of Al-Andalus, forces of the Castilian (Spanish) and Portuguese kingdoms conquered and maintained numerous posts in North Africa for trade and as a defence against piracy.

In 1481 the Papal bull Æterni regis had granted all land south of the Canary Islands to Portugal. Only this archipelago and the possessions of Santa Cruz de la Mar Pequeña (1476–1524), Melilla (conquered by Pedro de Estopiñán in 1497), Villa Cisneros (founded in 1502 in current Western Sahara), Mazalquivir (1505), Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera (1508), Oran (1509–1790), Algiers (1510–1529), Bugia (1510–1554), Tripoli (1511–1551), Tunis (1535–1569) and Ceuta (ceded by Portugal in 1668) remained as Spanish territory in Africa.

Philip Cottrell (born 3 January 1972) is an English cricketer. He was a right-handed batsman and right-arm medium-fast bowler who played for Cheshire. He was born in Birkenhead.

Cottrell, who played two games for the team in the Minor Counties Championship in 1999 and 2000, made a single List A appearance for the team, in the 1999 NatWest Trophy. From the lower order, he scored 11 not out, and took figures of 1-84 from nine overs of bowling.

Antonia Mercé y Luque (September 4, 1890 – July 18, 1936), stage name La Argentina, was a dancer known for her creation of the neoclassical style of Spanish dance as a theatrical art. She was one of the major influences on Japanese butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno.

It is given to few artists to incarnate in their art, at a given epoch, the distinct characteristics of their race and its conception of the beautiful, and this, in a manner so in complete and significant that their names get identified with a peculiar way of living and the story of their life becomes a page of history. It is to one such artist representative of her art, of her country, of her age that this short study is consecrated. The recent unexpected renaissance of Spanish dancing, an art whose creative power seemed to have been exhausted, is due primarily to the singular genius of one dancer, La Argentina. Alone she has epitomized and regenerated a form long cheapened and falsified by the music-hall gypsies turned out wholesale in Seville. And her indescribable success has loosened a new onslaught of Spanish dancing, the oldest and noblest of European exotics."