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Christopher Columbus and his crew sailed across the Ocean. They landed in America, thinking they had discovered the Indies. Columbus then claimed this land for spaing and vowed to convert the inhabitants, a friendly tribe named the Taino indians, to christianity.
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Hernan Cortez sailed across the atlantic to mexico where he found the Aztecs. With the help of the indians, which hated their ruler, and smallpox he conquered the Aztec capital Technolitan, using it's stones to build the new capital of the spanish empire, New Spain.
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Fransico Pizarro led an attack on the powerful Inca empire. Luckily for him smallpox had weakened the empire severely months before his arrival. Pizarro captured the Inca leader, Atahualpa, and promised him his freedom in exchange for gold. He recieved three rooms filled with gold and treasures, but killed Atahualpa anyway, and took over the Inca Empire.
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Jaques Cartier was sent to find the Northwest passage which he didn't find. He did find land which he claimed for France, naming it New france or Canada, as we know it today.
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A group of merchants from Virginia company sent 144 settlers across the Atllantic to Virginia. When they arrived there they settled on a new piece of they believed would be easilly taken from the natives on this land and called it Jamestown.
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Champlain sailed up the St Lawrence river and built a trading point he called Quebec. For the next 150 years Quebec would be a base for explorers, soldiers, fur trappers, fur traders, and missionaries.
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Henry Hudson discovered a deep river full of fish and thought it might take him across the continent. It didn't but he claimed the land around it for the Netherlands and this land became known as New Netherland.
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A puritan named Roger Williams left his wife and children and fled south, because he had different preaching ideas. He met a group of Indians, that cared for him and later sold him land. Two years after him Anne Hutchison was forced to leave from her home in Massachusets. She and her family settled in Roger William's colony, which was named 'Rhode Island in 1647.
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Robert de la Salle explored the entire length of the missisipi river. He planted a french flag at the mount of it and claimed everything west of it for france. La salle named this area Louisiana after the french monarch King Louis XIV.
