Isabella I was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundations for the political unification of...

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to gene...

Ferdinand II, called the Catholic, was in his own right the King of Sicily from 1468 and King of Aragon from 1479. As a consequence of his marriage to Isabella I, he was King of Castile jure uxoris as Ferdinand V from 1474 until her death i...

America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies. Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian merchant and cartographer who voyaged to and wrote about the Americas. His explorator...

Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar was a Spanish conquistador. He conquered and governed Cuba on behalf of Spain. Diego Velázquez was born in Cuéllar 1465, in the Segovia region of Spain. He fought in Naples before moving to Seville, where he met B...

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who organised the Spanish expedition to the East Indies that resulted in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano. He was born in a still disputed location i...

Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Cas...

Antonio de Mendoza was the first viceroy of New Spain, serving from April 17, 1535 to November 25, 1550, and the second viceroy of Peru, from September 23, 1551 to July 21, 1552. He became viceroy in 1535 and governed for 15 years, longer t...

Charles V was Holy Roman Emperor from 1519-1558; he was also King of Spain from 1516-1556, officially as Charles I of Spain, although often referred to as Charles V ("Carlos Quinto" or "Carlos V") in Spain and Latin America. He was the son...

Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal, was born at Valladolid, the only son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. Philip II, the self-proclaimed leader of Counter-Reformation, assumed the throne in 1556 with a great...

Massasoit Sachem or Ousamequin was the sachem or leader of the Wampanoag confederacy. Massasoit means Great Sachem. Massasoit's people had been seriously weakened by a series of epidemics and were vulnerable to attacks by the Narraganset...

Charles I was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles was the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after his father inherited the English throne in 1...

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis KG, PC, styled Viscount Brome between 1753 and 1762 and known as The Earl Cornwallis between 1762 and 1792, was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. In the United States and the...

Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader. Together with José de San Martín, he played a key role in Hispanic-Spanish America's successful struggle for independence from the Spanish Empire, and is today considered one of...

Antonio José de Sucre y Alcalá, known as the "Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho" (English: "Grand Marshal of Ayacucho"), was a Venezuelan independence leader who served as the fourth President of Peru and the second President of Bolivia. Sucre was...