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...

Pánfilo de Narváez (1470 or 1478 - 1528) was a Spanish conquistador and soldier in the Americas. Born in Spain, he first embarked to Jamaica in 1510 as a soldier. He came to participate in the conquest of Cuba and led an expedition to Camag...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

Juan de la Cosa was a Spanish cartographer, conquistador and explorer. He made the earliest extant European world map to incorporate the territories of the Americas that were discovered in the 15th century, sailed with Christopher Columbus...

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...

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...

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 Vinla...

Bartolomeu Dias was a Portuguese navigator. He was the first European to round (1488) the Cape of Good Hope, which he called Cabo Tormentoso [cape of storms]. That voyage opened the road to India. Dias accompanied Cabral on the voyage that...

Pedrarias Dávila (Pedro Arias de Ávila) y Ortiz de Cota, was a Spanish colonial administrator. He led the first great Spanish expedition in the New World. In 1519 he founded Panama City and moved his capital there in 1524. Moreover, he w...

Niccolò de' Conti was an Italian merchant, explorer, and writer. Born in Chioggia, who traveled to India and Southeast Asia, and possibly to Southern China, during the early 15th century. He was one of the human sources used to create the 1...

Henry the Navigator was an infante of the Kingdom of Portugal and an important figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire. He was responsible for the early development of European exploration and maritime trade with other continents....