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After landing on a small island on Oct. 12, 1492, in what he believed were the Indies, Columbus sailed along the coast of Cuba, certain that he had finally reached the continent of Cathay.
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On June 7, 1494, in the town of Tordesillas, Castilla and Portugal signed a treaty that divided the Atlantic Ocean through a line drawn from pole to pole, 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, leaving the hemisphere Eastern for the Crown of Portugal and the Western Hemisphere for the Crown. -
Encomienda, in Spain's American and Philippine colonies, legal system by which the Spanish crown attempted to define the status of the indigenous population. It was based upon the practice of exacting tribute from Muslims and Jews during the Reconquista (“Reconquest”) of Muslim Spain.
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The geographer Martin Waldseemüler is the first to use the name "America" to refer to the newly discovered continents, after the Italian merchant, explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. Columbus loses lucrative name rights.
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Juan Ponce de León descubre Florida.
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Vasco Núñez de Balboa becomes the first European to contemplate the Pacific Ocean after crossing the Isthmus of Panama.
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The conquest of Mexico refers mainly to the submission of the Mexican State, achieved by Hernán Cortés in the name of King Carlos I of Spain and in favor of the Spanish Empire between 1519 and 1521.
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On September 20, 1519, Magellan set sail from Spain in an effort to find a western sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. In command of five ships and 270 men, Magellan sailed to West Africa and then to Brazil, where he searched the South American coast for a strait that would take him to the Pacific.
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The Sad Night: The "Night of Tears" in which almost two thirds of Cortes' men, almost 800 in total, are killed while trying to escape from Tenochtitlan after Moctezuma's death.
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The Spanish import the first African slaves into the territory that will later become the United States.
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In a corner of downtown Mexico City there is a mosaic that marks the exact place of the meeting between Moctezuma and Hernán Cortés almost 500 years ago. ... The face to face between Moctezuma and Cortés, the domino piece on which Restall is centered, begins on November 8, 1519.
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Border problems between Mexico and the new US state of Texas provoke a large-scale war between the United States and Mexico.
