Vicente Yáñez Pinzón was a Spanish navigator, explorer, and conquistador, the youngest of the Pinzón brothers. Along with his older brother Martín Alonso Pinzón who captained the Pinta, he sailed with Christopher Columbus on the first voyag...

Dom Vasco da Gama, (c.1460s-1524) was a Portuguese explorer. He was the first European to reach India by sea, linking for the first time Europe and Asia by ocean route, as well as the Atlantic and the Indian oceans entirely and definitively...

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...

Alonso de Ojeda was a Spanish navigator, governor and conquistador. Ojeda accompanied Christopher Columbus in his second voyage to the New World in 1493. He distinguished himself there by his daring in battle with the natives, towards whom,...

Moctezuma or Montezuma II was an Aztec ruler, leader of the Aztec Triple Alliance from c. 1502–1520. He is famous for being the ruler of the Aztec empire at the start of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The portrayal of Moctezuma in histo...

Pedro Álvares Cabral was a Portuguese noble, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the discoverer of Brazil. Cabral conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Port...

Juan Ponce de León was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown. He led the first known European expedition to La Florida, which he named during his first voyage to...

Bartolomé de las Casas was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians". His extensive writings, the mos...

Vasco Núñez de Balboa was a Spanish conquistador who founded the colony of Darién in Panama, the oldest extant European settlement in the mainland of the Americas. He crossed the Isthmus in search of gold, reaching the Pacific Ocean after a...

Francisco Hernández de Córdoba is usually reputed as the founder of Nicaragua, and in fact he founded two important Nicaraguan cities, Granada and León. The currency of Nicaragua is named the córdoba in his memory. Cordoba was an officer of...

Diego de Almagro, also known as El Adelantado and El Viejo (The Elder), was a Spanish conquistador and a companion and later rival of Francisco Pizarro. He participated in the Spanish conquest of Peru and is credited as the first European d...

Francisco Pizarro was a Conquistador who seized the Inca empire for Spain. In 1510 he enrolled in an expedition of exploration in the New World, and three years later he joined Vasco Núñez de Balboa on the expedition that discovered the Pac...

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés was a Spanish historian and writer. He is commonly known as "Oviedo" even though his family name is Fernández. He participated in the Spanish colonization of the Caribbean, and wrote a long chronicle of...

Sebastián de Belalcázar was a Spanish conquistador. He took the name Belalcázar as that was the name of the castle-town near to his birthplace in Córdoba. According to various sources, he may have left for the New World with Christopher Col...

Pedro de Alvarado y Contreras was a Spanish conquistador and governor of Guatemala. He participated in the conquest of Cuba, in Juan de Grijalva's exploration of the coasts of Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, and in the conquest of Mexico le...