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Jan 1, 1415
Prince Henry the Navigator
Prince Henry the Navigator discovered and claimed the Madira and Azores island to the west and southwest of Portugul. -
Jan 1, 1488
Bartholomeu Dias
Bartholomeu Dias rounded the tip of Africa. The tip of Africa became the Cape of Good Hope. -
Jan 1, 1492
Christopher Columbus
Sailed the Ocean to try to reach the East Indies, by sailing west across the Atlantic. -
Jan 1, 1497
Vasco da Gama
Following in Dias' footsteps, he lead his ships around the Cape of Good Hope and later reached the Great Spice Port of Calicut on the west coast of India. -
Jan 1, 1497
John Cabot
Italian navigator and explorer whose discovery of parts of North America under the commission of Henry VII of England -
Jan 1, 1500
Amerigo Vespucci
Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer who first demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern outskirts -
Jan 1, 1500
Jacques Cartier
French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France -
Jan 1, 1500
Africans
As many as four million Africans were sent to Brazil that blended European, Native American, and African element -
Jan 1, 1500
sailing
Other European explorers continued to sail the coasts of the Americas, hunting for gold and other treasure, as well as a northwest passage to Asia. -
Jan 1, 1502
Francisco Pizarro and the Incans
he arrived in the Spanish colony of Hispaniola where he later joined the expedition to settle Panama -
Jan 1, 1505
Affonso I
Ruler of Kongo in Central Africa. -
Jan 1, 1510
Afonso de Albuquerque
The Portuguese under his command burst into the Indian Ocean -
Jan 5, 1510
Goa
the Portuguese seized the island of Goa off the coast of India making it their major military and commercial base. -
Jan 1, 1515
Bartolome de Las Casas
Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar -
Jan 1, 1515
Francis I of France
King of France -
Jan 1, 1521
Hernan Cortez and the Aztecs
Made an exciting landmark victory for the European settlers -
Oct 5, 1521
Magellan
Magellan had claimed the archipelago for Spain -
Jan 1, 1530
slave laborers in Americas
The Spanish began bringing Africans to the Americas as slave laborers by the 1530s. They imported millions of Africans as slaves -
Jan 1, 1530
Portugal
Portugal began to issue grants of land to portuguese nobles who agreed to develop the land and share profits with the crown. -
Jan 1, 1542
Laws of the Indies
spain passed the new laws of the indies which forbade enslavement and abuse of Native Americans but spain was to far away to enforce them. -
Jan 1, 1543
Japan
the portuguese reached Japan, followed by the Spanish, Dutch and English -
Jan 1, 1551
Universtiy of Mexico
To meet the churches need for educated priests the colonies built universities. The University of Mexico was established as early as 1551. -
Matteo Ricci
Jesuit priest who made a particularly strong impression on the Chinese. -
Merchants
a group of wealthy Dutch merchants formed the Dutch East India Company. -
Woman
Woman wishing on education might enter a convent -
Tokugawa
the Tokugawa's had turned against European traders Japan barred all european merchants and forbade Japanese to travel abroad -
Dutch
the dutch captured Malacca from the Portuguese and opened trade with China -
Manchu
victorious Manchu armies seized Beijing and made it their capital. -
The Boers
Dutch Farmers who settled around Cape Town. -
Lord Macartney
Arrived in China at the head of a British diplomatic mission. -
1500
Spain claimed a vast empire stretching from California to South America