Early Exploration of The New World

By syshe711
  • Sep 16, 1400

    1400's

    People in Europe began to look to the seas and beyond. Some seeked adventure while others wanted to spread Christianity but most of all people wanted riches.
  • Sep 16, 1450

    Henry The Navigator

    Prince Henry the Navigator began to urge sea captains to explore southward along the coast of Africa.
  • Sep 16, 1492

    Christopher Columbus

    Thought Asia could be reached by sailing west from Europe. Columbus persuaded the King and Queen of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, to support an expedition or trip of exploration. Columbus led his first expedition westward, he landed in the Bahamas, islands that he believed to be near Asia. Another voyage in 1498, Columbus reached South America
  • Sep 16, 1492

    Amerigo Vespucci

    Later, After Christopher Columbus, a mapmaker labeled this new continent "America" for another explorer, Amerigo Vespucci and the name stuck.
  • Sep 16, 1497

    Vasco Da Gama

    Portugese Vasco Da Gama found such a route and sailed all the way to India
  • Sep 16, 1497

    John Cabot

    King Henry VII sent Cabot on a voyage to the West because the English thought that there might be a water route through the Americas that would lead North and West to Asia.
  • Sep 16, 1500

    Spanish Exploration

    Juan Poncede Leon was a spanish official in the New World. In 1508-1509, he explored and settled on the island of Puerto Rico.
  • Sep 16, 1500

    Columbian Exchange

    In the years following Columbus, a great interaction between the "New World" and the "Old World" began. Plants, animal, and even diseases were exchanged between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. Also a huge slave trade began as Europeans transported millions of enslaved Africans to the New World to work on plantations.
  • Sep 16, 1513

    Ponce de Leon

    Ponce de Leon set out with ship and a crew, his exploration landed on the east coast of Florida.
  • Sep 16, 1520

    Spain

    In the 1520's, Spain was the most powerful nation in the World. Spanish explorers had claimed huge tracts of land in the New World. They had begun sending gold and silver back to Spain, from their base on Hispaniolain the Caribbean Sea, Spanish officials eyed the North American coast eagerly. Already, Ponce de Leon had explored and claimed Florida.
  • Sep 16, 1524

    Giovanni da Verrazano

    In 1542, King Francis I of France sent italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazano westward
  • Sep 16, 1539

    De Sotos Expedition

    in 1539, Hernando de Soto sailed with a military expedition from Havana, Cuba to the West Coast of Florida.
  • Sep 16, 1565

    St Augustine

    In 1565, Spain sent troops under Pedro Menendez de Aviles to Florida. Just south of Fort Caroline, Menendez built a fort at St. Augustine.
  • Sep 16, 1566

    Expedition

    In late 1566, Juan Pardo and Hernando Boyano led a small group of men to the South Carolina Coast. From there they pushed North and West on nearly the same route that de Soto had taken 25 years earlier.