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As early as 1341, Portuguese sailors had made their first forays into the tempting waters that lay beyond their shores, exploring the Canary Islands off the northwestern coast of Africa. -
He earned his title despite not venturing on many
expeditions himself. Henry funded and planned expeditions to satisfy his curiosity, expand the territory and wealth of Portugal, and to spread Christianity. -
The islands of Cape Verde was discovered in 1444 by Prince Henry the Navigator -
In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias sailed around the southern tip of Africa (the Cape of Good Hope). His voyage showed that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans flowed into each other. Ptolemy had been wrong to think that the Indian Ocean was land-locked. -
During four separate trips that started with the one in 1492, Columbus landed on various Caribbean islands that are now the Bahamas as well as the island later called Hispaniola. He also explored the Central and South American coasts. -
Over the course of two voyages, beginning in 1497 and 1502, da Gama landed and traded in locales along the coast of southern Africa before reaching India -
John Cabot was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII, King of England is the earliest known European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. -
In 1513, while leading an expedition in search of gold, he sighted the Pacific Ocean. Balboa claimed the ocean and all of its shores for Spain, opening the way for later Spanish exploration and conquest along the western coast of South America. -
Jorge Álvares (died 8 July 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is credited as the first European to have reached China by sea during the Age of Discovery. -
In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan set sail from Spain with five ships to find a western route to the Moluccas -
Cabeza de Vaca, who lived from about 1490 to around 1557, was the first European to explore North America and leave a written record. His reports that great wealth lay north of Mexico led the Spanish to explore Arizona and New Mexico. -
First European to travel inland in North America. Claimed what is now known as Canada for the Kingdom of France. -
The first contact between Japan and Portugal occurred in 1543 when three Portuguese merchants landed on Tanegashima Island at the southern tip of the Japanese Archipelago after their boat was blown off course. -
Frobisher was an English seaman who completed three voyages to North America, first in search of the Northwest Passage and then mineral treasure. During his first expedition, he became the first European to navigate the waterway now known as Frobisher Bay and returned to England with ore thought to contain gold. -
The first documented landing on Australia by a European was in 1606. The Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon landed on the western side of Cape York Peninsula and charted about 300 km of coastline. -
Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a rumoured Northeast Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle. -
After leaving Batavia, Tasman sailed eastward and reached the coast of Tasmania, which he named Van Diemen's Land after his patron. He then sailed north and discovered the west coast of New Zealand, which he named Staten Landt, but later renamed Nieuw Zeeland after the Dutch province of Zeeland.