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Jan 1, 1000
Vinland
Vinland is an island covered in vines that was discovered by Leif Erikson and vikings. It is located on the coast of Canada/North America. It was also a base for the vikings in the winter to fish and hunt and it was the place where many viking sagas occured. Some of these sagas are about Leif Erikson or his father, Erik the Red. Other names for Vinland may be Vine-land or Pasture-land. -
Jan 1, 1254
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was an Italian explorer who traveled to Asia to find goods in 1271. He was born in 1254 and died in 1354. He traveled with his father and uncle. He discovered many new cities and countries such as Veince, Italy, China, India, Persia, Alexandria, Constantinople, Damascus, and Baghdad. After his travels, he told about them to other Europeans and wrote a book about China. After that, many queens and kings of Europe sent explorers to China for the riches there. -
Jan 1, 1271
Constantinople
Constantinople was a city, which was taken over in 1453. It is located in the Middle East and it was discovered by Marco Polo, his father, and his uncle in 1271. Before it was taken over, it was one of the primary routes that people used to get to China. Constantinople was founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine on the site of an already-existing city, Byzantium, which was settled in the early days of Greek colonial expansion, probably around 671-662 BC. -
Jan 1, 1394
Prince Henry
Prince Henry was an European man who formed a navigation school. That's why he is often know as "Prince Henry the Navigator". He was born in 1394 and died in 1460. Prince Henry established a school for the study of the arts of navigation, mapmaking, and ship building. This would allow sailors to learn how to guide their ships and to come up with new ship designs. He also explored South Africa, or the land below the equator. -
Jan 1, 1450
Giovanni Caboto
Giovanni Caboto was was an Italian navigator and explorer who was born in 1450 and died in 1499. He is commonly held to have been the first European to discover the continent of North America in 1497, since the Vikings in 1000 AD. Some people think that he landed on Newfoundland. In Italy, he is know as Giovanni Caboto, but in England he is known as John Cabot. He is also known as the first man to search for the Northwest Passage, a sea route through the Arctic Ocean -
Oct 31, 1451
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, colonizer, and navigator. He was born on October 31, 1451 and died on May 20, 1506. He discovered America in 1492 and the natives that lived there. He actually thought he had discovered India, so he called the people that currently lived in North America at that time "Indians". Even though he was not the first European explorer to reach America (Leif Erikson and the vikings were), his voyages led to the first lasting European contact with America. -
Jan 1, 1454
Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer. He was born on March 9, 1454 and died on February 22, 1512. America is also believed to have been named after his first name. He is known for demonstrating that the New World was not Asia (like Christopher Columbus said) but an unknown fourth continent. Some people thought he was lying and just trying to make Christopher Columbus look bad, but he was actually true. -
Jan 1, 1457
Bartolomeu Dias
Bartolomeu Dias was a Portuguese navigator and explorer who explored Africa's coast. He was born in 1457 and died in 1500. In 1488, Dias led the first European expedition to sail around Africa's Cape of Good Hope, leaving Tagus, Portugal in 1487. This breakthrough of finding the Cape of Good Hope opened up trading routes from Europe to Asia. On a later expedition (in 1500, with Pedro Álvares Cabral), he sailed near South America on the way to Africa, and spotted land at Brazil. -
Jan 1, 1460
Vasco de Gama
Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese explorer who discovered an ocean route from Portugal to the East. He was born in 1460 and died in 1524. Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, on July 8, 1497, heading to the East. At the time, many people thought that his trip would be impossible because it was assumed that the Indian Ocean was not connected to any other seas. When he finally arrived in India, he only stayed for a short time, after being told to leave and leave the goods he had taken behind. -
Jan 1, 1475
Vasco Nunez de Balboa
Vasco Nunez de Balboa was a Spanish conquistador and explorer. He was born in 1475 and died in 1519. He was the first European to see (and stand in the waters of) the eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean, on September 13, 1513. He got there by taking a trek through the jungles of what is now Panama. He claimed the Pacific Ocean and all its shores for Spain, which opened the way for Spanish exploration along the western coast of South America. -
Jan 1, 1480
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa (northern Portugal) in 1480 and served King Charles of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" (modern islands in Indonesia). His trip from 1519–1522 became the first expedition to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean (which is now called the Strait of Magellan), and he was the first European man to cross the Pacific. He died on April 27, 1521. -
Jan 1, 1492
Martin Behaim
Martin Behaim was born on October 6, 1459 and died on July 29, 1507. He was a European mariner, artist, cosmographer, astronomer, philosopher, geographer, and explorer in service to the king of Portugual. who lived in Germany. He made the first globe of the world in 1492 our of pieces of leather that were stiched together. The globe he made though, however, was a lot smaller than the world really is. He also supposedly met Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and other celebrities. -
Oct 12, 1492
Guanahani
Guanahani was a name that the natives gave to an island, which Christopher Columbus called San Salvador when he arrived in America. Christopher Columbus reached the island on October 12, 1492, and it was the first island he sighted and visited in America. Guanahani is also one of the islands of the Lucayan Archipelago in the Bahamas, but the exact island is a matter of some debate. The question may never be resolved, because Christopher Columbus's original log book has been lost. -
Vikings
Vikings were people who lived in northern Europe, in parts which today we know as the areas of Norway, Sweeden, and Denmark who sailed west to build settlements in northern Canada and Greenland. They were the first known Europeans to set foot on North America. The vikings only stayed for a few years, though. Their reason is unknown but some say that they were fought off by natives. They wrote the Greenlanders saga to describe their travels. -
Leif Erikson
Leif Erikson was a viking explorer who set sail from Greenland, heading west. Leif Erikson was born in Greenland in 970 AD, as the son of Erik the red. He had two brothers, Thorvald and Thorsteinn, and one half-sister, Freydís. He married a woman named Thorgunna, and they had one son, Thorkell Leifsson. He was the first man to discover Vinland and spent many winters settling the newly discovered land. -
Period: to Jan 1, 1550
The Age of Exploration
