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1415
The Portuguese seize Ceuta
Portugal becomes powerful enough in the 1400s to invade Muslim North Africa, and in 1415 they take control of the coastal city of Ceuta. Prince Henry, later known as Henry the Navigator, is encouraged by their success to plan expeditions to the western coast of Africa. -
1419
Prince Henry the Navigator
Henry established a navigational school in 1419 on Portugal's west coast. There, cartographers, instrument makers, shipbuilders, scientists, and mariners gathered to hone their craft. -
1488
Bartolomeu Dias
He was the first European to circumnavigate and travel up the east coast of Africa. -
Oct 12, 1492
Christopher Columbus lands in the Caribbean
Spain provides the funding for Christopher Columbus' quest to locate a western trade route to Asia, maybe as a result of Portugal's early success in navigation. In 1492, Columbus arrives in the Caribbean, believing he has reached East Asia. His expedition allows later European explorers access to the Americas. -
May 4, 1493
Spain and Portugal are separated by the Line of Demarcation
Columbus' explorations are the subject of competing claims from Spain and Portugal, and in 1493, Pope Alexander VI intervened to maintain peace. He establishes a Line of Demarcation that creates two zones for the non-European world. Portugal has the same rights east of the line that Portugal does west of it for all lands, including those for exploration and trade. -
Jun 7, 1494
Portugal claims Brazil
A sizable portion of South America is still outside of Spain's empire, despite its continued property claims there. Portugal claims Brazil and grants land to Portuguese nobility in the Treaty of Tordesillas. Brazilian sugar and brazilwood farms are established by European settlers. -
Jun 24, 1497
John Cabot lands on the east coast of North America
Explorer John Cabot departs from England in search of a northwest route to Asia. He believes he is in Asia when he lands on the east coast of North America and immediately claims the area in the name of King Henry VII. -
May 20, 1498
Vasco da Gama reaches India after rounding Africa
Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese explorer, circumnavigates Africa's southernmost coast before arriving in India. Despite the fact that the Portuguese lose half of their ships and a large number of sailors perish during the voyage, the business is quite successful, and he returns with a cargo of spices. His journey demonstrates that Portugal may reach Asian markets directly rather than via deceptive overland channels. -
1500
Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci makes trips and voyages to find an entirely new continent. Columbus found the new world, but Vespucci was the one who recognized that it was a new world. He explored South America's northern coast beyond the Amazon and enhanced navigational methods. In that expedition, he estimated Earth's radius within 50 miles. -
1502
Da Gama forces a treaty on the ruler of Calicut and sets up a trading post
Da Gama establishes a commercial station and signs a treaty with Calicut. He coerces Calicut's king to sign a treaty of cooperation. He sends Portuguese merchants to Calicut to deal with spice traders. -
Apr 25, 1507
A German mapmaker names the "New World" America
Waldseemüller, a German priest clergyman, and amateur geographer who was part of a literary club that published an introduction to cosmology wrote about the new land mass Vespucci had found. The mapmaker calls the territory of America, and Columbus's Caribbean islands the West Indies. -
Aug 24, 1511
Portugal seizes Malacca
On the southwest coast of the Malay peninsula, the Portuguese colonized Malacca in 1511. Malacca was a regional and interregional trade hub because it controlled the Malay Straits from the Andaman Sea to the South China Sea. Portuguese was able to ally with Asian leaders and dominate Asian trade routes due to this. -
1513
Nunez de Balboa
Nunez de Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513 on a gold-hunting voyage. Balboa claimed the ocean and all its borders for Spain, allowing Spanish exploration and conquest throughout South America's western coast. -
1519
Hernan Cortés lands in Mexico
Hernán Cortés was sent by the Spanish king Charles V to explore more of the Caribbean, look for gold and other resources, and claim this land for the king. Cortés sailed from Cuba to Mexico, landed there, and then went to the Aztec capital. -
1521
Ferdinand Magellan
In 1521, Ferdinand Magellan's ship went south and explored the coast of South America before he found the strait that now bears his name. -
Sep 8, 1522
The Vittoria Completes its Circumnavigation of the Globe
Nearly three years after it first set sail, the Vittoria finishes the first trip around the world, called the first circumnavigation. Even though Ferdinand Magellan leads the first trip, he and four other ships don't make it to the end. -
1524
Giovanni Verrazano
Italian navigator and explorer Giovanni da Porto, who was born in Italy in 1485 and died in France in 1528, was the first European to see New York and Narragansett bays. -
Aug 29, 1533
Francisco Pizarro executes the last Inca emperor
Atahuallpa, the 13th and final Inca emperor is strangled to death by Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors. The 300-year Inca civilization came to an end with Atahuallpa's execution as the last free ruling ruler. -
Jun 9, 1534
Jacques Cartier Sails Upriver
He was a french navigator who was commissioned to explore the northern lands in search of gold, spices, and a northern passage to Asia by King Francis I of France. His voyages underlay France's claims to Canada. -
1539
Hernando de Soto
He was a Spanish conquistador who led expeditions to Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. Although he was a key player in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Peruvian Inca Empire, he is best recognized for having led the first European expedition to travel extensively across the modern-day United States (through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and most likely Arkansas). -
1540
Francisco Coronado
He was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who, between 1540 and 1542, conducted a large expedition through sections of the southwestern United States from what is now Mexico to modern-day Kansas. -
Jul 28, 1576
Martin Frobisher sights land in North America
North America is where Martin Frobisher plans to settle. English explorer Martin Frobisher sets sail for North America with the goal of discovering the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic Ocean and Asia. He first sees the coast of what is now Canada's Labrador in 1576. Frobisher makes three expeditions but is unable to locate the Northwest Passage. -
1580
Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. This was also a secret pirate mission sanctioned by Queen Elizabeth against the Spanish. -
English merchants found the East India Company
On December 31, 1600, the English East India Company was established by royal charter. For more than two centuries, it operated as a hybrid of a nation-state and a trading organization, making enormous profits from commerce with countries like India, China, Indonesia, and Persia. -
Dutch merchants found the Dutch East India Company
A chartered corporation founded on March 20, 1602, by the States General of the Netherlands, combining earlier firms to become the first joint-stock company ever. -
Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain made an effort to improve relations with the local native tribes during the summer of 1609. He formed alliances with the St. Lawrence River region's Wendat (also known as Huron by the French), Algonquin, Montagnais, and Etchemin people. These tribes begged Champlain to support them in their conflict with the Iroquois, who were located further south. -
Henry Hudson
The Dutch East India Company paid for Hudson's third expedition, which brought him to the New World. He was at first commissioned by the Dutch East India Company to discover a trading route across the Americas to India but instead stumbled into the Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, and Hudson River. He also traveled to Green Bay along Lake Michigan. -
Jacques Marquette & Louis Joliet
Louis and Jacques discovered the Mississippi River. They traveled by way of Lake Michigan, the Fox River, the Wisconsin River, and the Mississippi River before arriving in Green Bay. Joliet established a fort on Anticosti Island, pushed the fur trade westward, and carried out significant mapping. -
Robert de La Salle
King Louis XIV sent Robert de La Salle from Canada to travel south and navigate the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. La Salle intended to create a colony sixty leagues up the river as a base for attacking Mexico, crippling Spanish ships, obstructing English expansion, and serving as a warm water port for the Mississippi Valley fur trade while Spain and France were at war. -
The English establish a colonial empire
The British ruler started founding colonies in America in the early 1600s. The majority of the colonies had united into 13 British colonies by the 1700s: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. -
Jacob Roggeveen
Dutch adventurer Jacob Roggeveen was tasked with discovering Davis Land and Terra Australis but instead discovered Easter Island. Samoa, Bora Bora, and Maupiti of the Society Islands were all discovered by Jacob Roggeveen. Along with his brother Jan Roggeveen, who remained in the Netherlands, he coordinated the voyage. -
Samuel Wallis
British explorer Samuel Wallis made the initial discovery of Tahiti in 1767. Captain James Cook traveled from Britain and arrived in 1769, followed a year later by the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville. -
Mungo Park
Mungo Park was a Scottish explorer and physician famous for his explorations of the Niger River in Africa.