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1000
Leif Erickson
was the first viking to find Iceland, Greenland, and North America. He placed a claim stone. -
1419
Prince Henry the Navigator
Infante Dom Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu, better known as Prince Henry the Navigator, was a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15th-century European maritime discoveries and maritime expansion. -
1474
Juan Ponce de Leon
Juan Ponce de León, commonly known as Ponce de León, was a Spanish explorer and conquistador known for leading the first official European expedition to Florida and the first governor of Puerto Rico. He was born in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain in 1474. -
1488
Bartolomeu Dias
Became the first European mariner to round the southern tip of Africa, opening the way for a sea route from Europe to Asia. -
1492
Christopher Columbus
Sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and reached a continent that was previous unknown to him. -
1497
Vasco de Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient. -
1497
John Cabot
John Cabot was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England is the earliest known European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. -
1500
Pedro Alaveres
Pedro Álvares Cabral was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. In 1500 Cabral conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal. -
1501
Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian merchant, explorer, and navigator from the Republic of Florence, from whose name the terms America and Americas are derived. Between 1497 and 1504, Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the Age of Discovery, first on behalf of Spain and then for Portugal. -
1504
Hernan Cortes
He wanted to travel and see new lands.He also wanted to make his fortune and fame. Cortes sailed for the New World in 1504. He fist arrived in island of Hispaniola at the city od Santo Domingo. -
1517
Vasco Nunez de Baiboa
Vasco Núñez de Balboa was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World. -
1519
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who organised the Spanish expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, which was completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano. -
1528
Francisco Pizarro
In 1528, Pizarro went back to spain and managed to procure a commission from Emperor Charles V. Pizarro was to conquer the southern territory and establish a new Spanish province there. In 1532, accompanied by his brothers, Pizarro overthrew the Inca leader Atahualpa and conquered Peru. -
1528
Alvar Nunes Cabeza de vaca
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a Spanish explorer of the New World, and one of four survivors of the 1527 Narváez expedition. -
1534
Jacques Cartier
Made three voyages to Canada. On April 20, 1534, accompanied by approximately 60 sailors who were to handle two ships of about 60 tonnes each, Cartier set sail from Saint-Malo. Crossing the Atlantic went smoothly; after 20 days, he entered the Strait of Belle Isle. -
1539
Hernando de soto
On May 8, 1541, south of present-day Memphis, Tennessee, Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River, one of the first European explorers to ever do so. ... A fine horseman and a daring adventurer, de Soto explored Central America and accumulated considerable wealth through the Indian slave trade. -
1540
Franciso Vasquez de cornoado
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado y Luján was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who led a large expedition from Mexico to present-day Kansas through parts of the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542 -
1542
Juan cabrilld
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo was an Iberian maritime explorer best known for investigations of the West Coast of North America, undertaken on behalf of the Spanish Empire. He was the first European to explore present-day California, navigating along the coast of California in 1542–1543. -
Henry Hudson
Made his first voyage west from England in 1607, when he was hired to find a shorter route to Asia from Europe through the Arctic Ocean. After twice being turned back by ice, Hudson embarked on a third voyage–this time on behalf of the Dutch East India Company–in 1609. -
Henry Hudson
was an English navigator and explorer who set out to find either a northeast passage “by the North Pole to Japan and China” or a similar northwest passage. Though neither passage was found, his attempts contributed significantly to the navigational geography of North America. -
Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain was a French colonist, navigator, cartographer, draftsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He made between 21 and 29 trips across the Atlantic Ocean, and founded Quebec, and New France, on 3 July 1608 -
Rene-Robert Be LaSella
Was an explorer best known for leading an expedition down the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. He claimed the region watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries for France and named it Louisiana after King Louis XIV.
