Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was a Spanish admiral and explorer, best remembered for founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565. This was the first successful Spanish foothold in La Florida and remained the most significant city in the region for...

Uluj Ali was a Muslim corsair of Italian origin, who converted to Islam and later became an Ottoman admiral (Reis) and Chief Admiral of the Ottoman Fleet in the 16th century. He was also known by several other names in the Christian countri...

Mathurin d’Aux de Lescout, called Mathurin Romegas, was a scion of the aristocratic Gascony family of d'Aux and a member of the Knights of Saint John. He was one of the Order's greatest naval commanders and ended his life disgraced as a Riv...

Admiral Sir John Hawkins was an English shipbuilder, naval administrator and commander, merchant, navigator, and slave trader. As treasurer (1577) and controller (1589) of the Royal Navy, he rebuilt older ships and helped design the faster...

Marcantonio II Colonna (or Marc'Antonio), Duke and Prince of Paliano, was an Italian general and admiral. Colonna, born at Civita Lavinia, was a member of the famous noble family of the Lazio, then one of the most powerful fief holder of th...

Sir Martin Frobisher was an English seaman who made three voyages to the New World to look for the Northwest Passage. All landed in northeastern Canada, around today's Resolution Island and Frobisher Bay. On his second voyage, Frobisher fou...

Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, a renowned pirate, and a politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the...

Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira (or Neyra) was a Spanish navigator. Born in Congosto, in León, he was the nephew of Lope García de Castro, viceroy of Peru. He is best known for the two voyages of discovery he led into the Pacific in 1567 and 159...

John of Austria, Spanish admiral and general; illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He was acknowledged in his father's will and was recognized by his half brother, Philip II of Spain. In 1569 he fought against the Morisco rebel...

Willem Barentsz was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer. Barentsz went on three expeditions to the far north in search for a Northeast passage. He reached as far as Novaya Zemlya and the Kara Sea in his first two voyages...

Sir James Lancaster was a prominent Elizabethan trader and privateer. Lancaster came from Basingstoke in Hampshire. In his early life, he was a soldier and a trader in Portugal. On the 10th of April 1591 he started from Torbay in Devon, wit...

Sir Thomas Cavendish was an English explorer and a privateer known as "The Navigator" because he was the first who deliberately tried to emulate Sir Francis Drake and raid the Spanish towns and ships in the Pacific and return by circumnavig...

William Adams, known in Japanese as Anjin Miura: "the pilot of Miura", was an English navigator who travelled to Japan and is believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach that country. He was the inspiration for the character of John B...

Jacob Corneliszoon van Neck was a Dutch naval officer and explorer who led the second Dutch expedition to Indonesia from 1598 to 1599. Following the success of the first Dutch expedition to Indonesia in 1597, Van Neck was chosen to lead a s...

Cornelis de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who discovered a new sea route from Europe to Indonesia and managed to begin the Dutch spice trade. At the time, the Portuguese Empire held a monopoly on the spice trade, and the voyage was a symbol...