The Columbian Exchange

By iffy891
  • Aug 3, 1492

    Columbus sets sail

    Christopher Columbus sets sail from Spain towards the East Indies.
  • Aug 12, 1492

    Columbus 'finds' the New world

    Columbus and his men land in the Bahamas unintentionally ‘discovering’ the New world and starts the Columbian Exchange.
  • Nov 8, 1519

    Hernan Cortes's arrival

    Hernan Cortes, an explorer, arrives at Tenochtitlan the Aztec capital. He lead a small army of several hundred spanish soldiers and they were welcomed as honored guests.
  • 1520

    imprisonment of the Aztec emperor

    The Aztecs and their spanish guests were not getting on. Hernan Cortes imprisoned the Aztec emperor, Moctezuma in his own palace.
  • Period: 1520 to 1521

    smallpox outbreak

    A soldier on Cortes’s army was carrying smallpox and around half the population of Tenochtitlan was infected.
  • Jul 1, 1520

    death of the Aztec emperor

    The Aztec emperor is forced to beg his people to follow the spanish rule. inanger the Aztecs stone their leader to death and force the spanish out of the city.
  • Aug 13, 1521

    Aztec surrenders

    A soldier on Cortes’s army was carrying smallpox and around half the population of Tenochtitlan was infected.
  • 1522

    Inca monarch death

    The Inca empire got smallpox, killing over 200,000 people, including their monarch Wayna Qhapaq, his chosen heir, and many of their top military generals and civilian administrators. This threw them into civil war which continued until the spanish invasion in 1532.
  • Nov 16, 1532

    Inca ruler captured

    Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, with an army of only 168 men and 62 horses, captured Inca ruler Atawallpa and held him for ransom.
  • Aug 29, 1533

    ransom meet

    Atawallpa meets Francisco Pizarro's ransom demands, but instead of freeing Atawallpa, Pizarro brutally murders him. The Inca empire falls into chaos.
  • Mar 23, 1534

    spanish conquest complete

    Francisco Pizarro captures the Incan capital of Cusco. This completed the spanish conquest of the Inca empire.
  • Jun 1, 1539

    North America expidition

    Hernando de Soto's expedition into North America lands on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The expidition consisted of 600 men. They hope to discover gold and an easy water passage through North America to China.
  • May 21, 1542

    fleeing to mexico

    Hernando de Soto gets sick and dies. His soldiers flee to Mexico.

  • buffalo overrun island

    A French explorer called La Salle canoes the Mississippi River. He finds an almost uninhabited wilderness overrun with buffalo.

  • a new native american nation

    On the southern Great Plains, the Comanche become a distinct Native American nation. The Comanche are the first North American Indian tribe to fully use the horse in their culture, and quickly take control of the Southern Plains.

  • Irish starvation

    Over 1 million Irish die of starvation when a potato disease destroys the potato crop. The potato, which was originally grown in South America, was a main food source of the Irish people, and the crop's failure has catastrophic effects.