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Spain's period of extensive exploration and conquest, primarily in the Americas, spanned from the late 15th to the early 17th centuries
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Portugal began establishing a powerful empire by exploring and colonizing Africa in the mid-15th century, particularly after the conquest of Ceuta in 1415 and the voyages of explorers like Prince Henry the Navigator.
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Portugal began establishing trading posts in Africa and Asia in the mid-15th century, with the first overseas trading post established in 1445 on the island of Arguin off the coast of Mauritania, and later expanding their presence throughout the 15th and 16th centuries
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Spain initiated the Columbian Exchange, a period of intense exchange of plants, animals, diseases, and people between the Old and New Worlds, with the voyages of Christopher Columbus starting in 1492
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The Spanish Empire in the Americas began with Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage and the subsequent Spanish colonization of the Caribbean, expanding across the Americas over the next centuries, culminating in the loss of most of its territories in the early 1800s
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England began establishing trade routes and claiming territories, laying the foundation for the British Empire, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with key events including John Cabot's voyage in 1497 and the establishment of the East India Company in 1600
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Portugal spearheaded European overseas exploration primarily during the 15th and 16th centuries, with expeditions along the African coast starting around 1419, culminating in reaching India by sea in 1498 and Brazil in 1500
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England began establishing trade routes and claiming territories in America in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, with the first permanent English settlement, Jamestown, founded in 1607
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France's colonization of North America, known as New France, began with Jacques Cartier's exploration of the St. Lawrence River in 1534 and lasted until the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spain in 1763
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Tensions between Spain and England flared in the 1580s, after Elizabeth began allowing privateers such as Sir Francis Drake to conduct pirate raids on Spanish fleets carrying treasure from their rich New World colonies
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France began establishing colonies in the Caribbean in the early 17th century, with the first permanent French colony, Saint-Pierre, established on Martinique in 1635
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France established a presence in India through the French East India Company in 1664, establishing trading posts and colonies like Pondicherry (1673), Chandernagore (1673), and later Yanam, Mahe, and Karikal.
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In 1493, during his second voyage, Columbus founded Isabela, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the New World, on Hispaniola. After finding gold in recoverable quantities nearby, the Spanish quickly overran the island and spread to Puerto Rico in 1508, to Jamaica in 1509, and to Cuba in 1511