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Sep 9, 1492
Columbus encountered the New World for the first time
Christopher Columbus departed mainland Spain on August 3, 1492. He quickly made port in the Canary Islands for a final restocking and left there on September 6. He was in command of three ships: the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa María. Although Columbus was in overall command, the Pinta was captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón and the Niña by Vicente Yañez Pinzón. -
Sep 9, 1520
Jacque Cartier sailed the St. Lawrence
Jacques Cartier was born in 1491.in Saint-Malo, the port on the north-west coast of Brittany. Cartier, who was a respectable mariner, improved his social status in 1520 by marrying Mary Catherine des Granches, member of a leading family. His good name in Saint-Malo is recognized by its frequent appearance in baptismal registers as godfather or witness. -
Sep 9, 1530
Hernando de Soto’s expedition of the Southeast
A captain in the Spanish army at the age of twenty, de Soto had served as Francisco Pizarro’s chief military advisor during Spain’s ruthless conquest of Peru in the early 1530s. -
Sep 9, 1540
Coronado's expedition from Mexico to Kansas
Francisco Vázquez de Coronado y Luján (1510 – 22 September 1554) was a Spanish conquistador and explorer, who led a great expedition from Mexico to present-day Kansas through parts of southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542. Coronado had hoped to reach the mythical Seven Cities of Gold. His expedition discovered the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. His name is often Anglicized as Vasquez de Coronado. -
Sep 9, 1565
Spanish establish St. Augustine, Florida
A Spanish Expedition Established St. Augustine in Florida September 8, 1565
Did you know that the oldest continually occupied city in the United States is in the state of Florida? On September 8, 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed on the shore of what is now called Matanzas Bay and began the founding of the Presidio of San Agustin. -
Attempted Roanoke Colony
The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in Dare County, present-day North Carolina, United States, was a late 16th-century attempt by Queen Elizabeth I to establish a permanent English settlement. The enterprise was financed and organized originally by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who drowned in 1583 during an aborted attempt to colonize St. John's, Newfoundland. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's half brother Sir Walter Raleigh later gained his brother's charter from Queen Elizabeth I and subsequently executed. -
John Rolfe introduced tobacco to Virginia
Rolfe was born in Heacham, Norfolk, England as the son of John Rolfe and Dorothea Mason, and was baptised on 6 May 1585. At the time, Spain held a virtual monopoly on the lucrative tobacco trade. Most Spanish colonies in the New World were located in southern climates more favourable to tobacco growth than the English settlements, notably Jamestown. As the consumption of tobacco had increased, the balance of trade between England and Spain began to be seriously affected. Rolfe was one of a numbe -
The Pueblo Revolt
In 1598 Juan de Oñate led 129 soldiers and 10 Franciscan Catholic priests plus a large number of women, children, servants, slaves, and livestock into the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico. There were at the time approximately 40,000 Pueblo Indians inhabiting the region. Oñate put down a revolt at Acoma Pueblo by killing and enslaving hundreds of the Indians and sentencing 24 men to have one of their feet amputated. The Acoma Massacre would instill fear of the Spanish in the region for years to co -
Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec
Born into a family of mariners, Champlain, while still a young man, began exploring North America in 1603 under the guidance of François Gravé Du Pont,From 1604 to 1607 Champlain participated in the exploration and settlement of the first permanent European settlement north of Florida, Port Royal, Acadia (1605). Then, in 1608, he established the French settlement that is now Quebec City.Champlain was the first European to explore and describe the Great Lakes, and published maps of his. -
Juan de Onate founded Santa Fe
Don Juan de Oñate y Salazar (1550–1626) was a Spanish Conquistador, explorer, and colonial governor of the Santa Fe de Nuevo México province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. He led early Spanish expeditions to the Great Plains and Lower Colorado River Valley, encountering numerous indigenous tribes in their homelands there. Oñate founded settlements within the province and in the present day American Southwest. -
Jamestown, Virginia founded
The Jamestown[1] settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. William Kelso says Jamestown "is where the British Empire began,... this was the first colony in the British Empire."Established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607 (O.S., May 14, 1607 N.S.),and considered permanent after brief abandonment in 1610, it followed several earlier failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Jamestown served . -
First African slaves arrived in Virginia
One stormy day in August of 1619 a Dutch manof-war with about 20 Africans on board entered port at the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia. Little is known of these newly arrived people: the first Africans to set foot on the North American continent. At this time the slave trade between Africa and the English colonies had not yet been established, and it is unlikely that the 20 or so newcomers became slaves upon their arrival. -
Plymouth, Massachusetts founded
Plymouth Colony (sometimes New Plymouth, or Plymouth Bay Colony) was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of the southeastern portion of the modern state of Massachusetts. -
South Carolina colony founded
In 1663, King Charles II issued a royal charter to eight nobles to settle the area south of Virginia. They created Carolina and included the previous settlement. However, because of internal problems, the crown took over the colony and formed North -
Beaver Wars
The wars were brutal and are considered one of the bloodiest series of conflicts in the history of North America. As the Iroquois succeeded in the war and enlarged their territory, they realigned the tribal geography of North America, and destroyed several large tribal confederacies—including the Huron, Neutral, Erie, Susquehannock, and Shawnee—and pushed some eastern tribes west of the Mississippi River, or southward into the Carolinas. The Iroquois also controlled the Ohio Valley lands as hunt -
Marquette and Joliet sailed down the Mississippi
On May 18, 1673, Jolliet and Marquette departed from St. Ignace with two canoes and five other voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry (today's Métis). The group followed Lake Michigan to the end of Green Bay. They then paddled upstream (but southward) on the Fox River to the site now known as Portage, Wisconsin. There, they portaged (carried their canoes and gear) a distance of slightly less than two miles through marsh and oak forest to the Wisconsin River. Europeans eventually built a trading pos -
Pennsylvania Colony founded
The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was founded in English North America by William Penn on March 4, 1681 as dictated in a royal charter granted by King Charles II. The name Pennsylvania, which translates roughly as "Penn's Woods",was created by combining the Penn surname (in honor of William's father, Admiral Sir William Penn) with the Latin word sylvania, meaning "forest land". The proprietary colony's charter remained in the hands of the Penn family until. -
Georgia Colony founded
In 1732, James Oglethorpe was given a charter from King George II to create a new colony which he would name Georgia. This was located between South Carolina and Florida. It had two main purposes: to serve as a place where debtors in prison could go to start anew and it served as a barrier against Spanish expansion from Florida. -
French began fur trade with Indians
The fur trade became one of the main economic ventures in North America attracting, at various times, competition among the French, British, Dutch, Spanish, and Russians. Indeed in the early history of the United States, capitalizing on this trade, and removing the British stranglehold over it, was seen as a major economic objective. Many Native American societies across the continent came to depend on the fur trade as their primary source of income. By the mid-1800s, however, changing fashions