Prince Henry the
Navigator
• Portuguese
• Established a school for navigators
• Never actually sailed himself

Prince Henry the
Navigator
• Sponsored voyages along the
African coast to:
• Win the slave trade away from the Muslims
• Stop Muslim expansion

Vasco da Gama
1497-1498
• Portuguese
• First to reach India from Europe by sea
• Went around the Southern tip of Africa

Christopher
Columbus 1492 sailed for Spain
• Wanted to sail west to reach
India
“It was my wish to bypass no island without taking possession…”

Christopher
Columbus
1492
• Made landings in the
Bahamas, Cuba & northern
South America
• Called the natives “Indians” because he believed that he was off coast of India

Amerigo Vespucci
1497-1502
• Was the first to recognize that the Americas were new lands & NOT India
• German geographer may have named the Americas after
Vespucci

Ferdinand Magellan
1519-1522
• Portuguese, but sailed for Spain
• His crew completed the first ever circumnavigation

Ferdinand Magellan
1519-1522
• Killed in the Philippines, but his crew returned to Spain
• Significance: world is round, oceans connected, lands that
Columbus discovered were not part of Asia

Magellan’s Route

Hernando Cortes
1519-1521
• Spanish conquistador
• Conquered the Aztecs

Hernando Cortes
1519-1521
• Montezuma believed that
Cortes was a god
• Offered him gifts of gold
• Cortes was not satisfied; killed a large # of Aztecs during a religious festival

Hernando Cortes
1519-1521
• Spanish advantages over the Aztecs:
• Guns, horses & disease

Juan Ponce de Leon
• Spanish
1513
• Looking for the
Fountain of Youth
• Left Puerto
Rico & arrived in
Florida

Francisco Pizarro
1531
• Spanish
• Sailed from
Panama to
Peru
• Conquered
Incas

• French
Samuel de
Champlain
1608
• Founded
Quebec
• First permanent French settlement in the Americas

John Cabot
1497-1498
• Italian, but sailed for
England
• Looking for a Northwest
Passage

John Cabot
1497-1498
• Explored coasts of
Newfoundland,
Nova Scotia, &
New England

Henry Hudson
1609-
• English; sailed the English
1610 for the Dutch &
• Looking for
Northwest passage to India

Henry Hudson
1609-
1610
• Charted:
• Much of coastal North
America
• The Hudson River
• The Hudson Bay in Northern
Canada