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Leif Eriksson explored lands west of Greenland in about the year 1000.
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Bartholomeu Dias set out from Lisbon with 2 small caravels and a supply ship.
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Columbus set sails from Palos, he had 2 small ships, the Nina and the Pinta, and a larger one, the Santa Maria.
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Italian sailor John Cabot, sailing for the English, searched for a passage to the Pacific Ocean along the coast of Canada and Newfoundland. This became the basis of England's claim to North America.
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Vasco Da Gama set sail from Portugal with four ships, headed for Africa.
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Amerigo Vespucci led a voyage funded by Spain.
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Pedro Alvares Cabral, Portuguese navigator who is generally credited as the first European to reach Brazil.
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Vasco Nunez de Balboa was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean.
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Cortes conquered the Aztec Empire that has ruled the region.
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Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who was sailing for Spain, reached the southernmost tip of South America.
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Francisco Pizarro controlled most of the vast and wealthy Inca Empire while Cortes went to jail.
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Giovanni de Varrazano explored the coast of North America from present-day Nova Scotia down to the Carolina's.
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Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was part of a Spanish expedition to Florida.
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Frenchman Jacques Cartier sailed down the Saint Lawrence river all the way to present-day Montreal, claiming lands for France.
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Hernando de Soto led an expedition to explore Florida and what is today the southern of United States.
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Francisco Vasquez de Coronado travels took him through northern Mexico and present-day Arizona and New Mexico, until his expedition reached a Zuni settlement in 1540.
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The Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo was first to sight what we know call California in 1542.
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Juan Ponce de Leon exploration led to the first Spanish settlement in what is now United States- a fort the Spanish built at St. Augustine, Florida in 1565.
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The English captain Henry Hudson led Dutch expedition to present-day New York.
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Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette traveled the Mississippi River by canoe.
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Robert Cavelier de La Salle followed the Mississippi all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. He claimed the region for France, calling it Louisiana in honor of Louis XIV.
