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Oct 9, 1000
Viking Exploration - Leif Ericsson
Born in the 10th century Norse explorer Leif Eriksson was the second son of Erik the Red. he had been told by Norwegian king Olaf I Tryggvason to spread Christianity. -
Aug 4, 1404
Zheng he
In 1381, the Ming armed forces killed his father and captured him when he was ten years old. He became a eunuch and was sent to Nanjing to serve in Prince Yan’s household. As a young adult he was very tall, most likely around six and a half feet. He learned military and fighting tactics, as well as studied the works of Mencius and Confucius. He became a very close confidant of the prince. -
Nov 4, 1440
Prince Henry
Portugal, Duke of Viseu, better known as Henry the Navigator, was an important figure in 15th-century Portuguese politics and in the early days of the Portuguese Empire. -
Nov 7, 1492
Columbus’ First Voyage
Famed Italian explorer Christopher Columbus discovered the New World of the Americas on an expedition sponsored by King Ferdinand of Spain in 1492. -
May 7, 1497
Vasco de Gama
The Portuguese nobleman Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon in 1497 on a mission to reach India and open a sea route from Europe to the East. After sailing down the western coast of Africa and rounding the Cape of Good Hope, his expedition made numerous stops in Africa before reaching the trading post of Calicut, India, in May 1498. -
May 10, 1498
Amerigo Vespucci
America was named after Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine navigator and explorer who played a prominent role in exploring the New World. On May 10, 1497, he embarked on his first voyage. On his third and most successful voyage, he discovered present-day Rio de Janeiro and Rio de la Plata. -
Feb 9, 1519
Hernan Cortez-Conquest of the Aztecs
was born around 1485 in Medellín, Spain. In 1518, Cortés was to command his own expedition to Mexico, but Velázquez canceled it. Cortés ignored the order and set sail for Mexico with more than 500 men and 11 ships that fall. In February 1519, the expedition reached the Mexican coast.
Cortés became allies with some of the native peoples he encountered, but with others he used deadly force to conquer Mexico. -
Nov 7, 1519
Ferdinand Magellan
with a fleet of five ships to discover a western sea route to the Spice Islands. En route he discovered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan and became the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean. -
Jun 24, 1532
Francisco Pizarro
Conquistador Francisco Pizarro was born, an illegitimate child, circa 1476, in Trujillo, Spain—an area stricken by poverty. His father, Captain Gonzalo Pizarro, was a poor farmer. His mother, Francisca González, was of humble heritage. Pizarro grew up without learning how to read. Instead, he herded his father's pigs. -
Nov 16, 1550
The Columbian Exchange
When Europeans first touched the shores of the Americas, Old World crops such as wheat, barley, rice, and turnips had not traveled west across the Atlantic, and New World crops such as maize, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, and manioc had not traveled east to Europe. In the Americas, there were no horses, cattle, sheep, or goats, all animals of Old World origin. Except for the llama, alpaca, dog, a few fowl, and guinea pig. -
Atlantic Slave Trade
The volume of slaves carried off from Africa reached thirty thousand per year in the 1690 s and eighty-five thousand per year a century later. More than eight out of ten Africans forced into the slave trade made their journeys in the century and a half after 1700.
By 1820, nearly four Africans for every one European had crossed the Atlantic. About four out of every five females that traversed the Atlantic were from Africa. -
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