Early Explorer's

John Cabot

May 18, 1450

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 Vinland in the eleventh century.

Bartolomeu Dias

Jun 10, 1450

Bartolomeu Dias, a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, was a Portuguese explorer. He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, the first European to do so, setting up the route from Europe to Asia later on.

Christopher Columbus

May 18, 1451

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for European exploration and colonization of the Americas.

Amerigo Vespucci

Mar 9, 1454

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian merchant, explorer, and navigator from the Republic of Florence, from whose name the terms America and Americas are derived. Between 1497 and 1504, Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the Age of Discovery, first on behalf of Spain and then for Portugal.

Pedro Álvares Cabral

Jul 23, 1467

Pedro Álvares Cabral was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer regarded as the European discoverer of Brazil. In 1500 Cabral conducted the first substantial exploration of the northeast coast of South America and claimed it for Portugal.

Juan Ponce de Leon

May 28, 1474

Juan Ponce de León, commonly known as Ponce de León, was a Spanish explorer and conquistador known for leading the first official European expedition to Florida and the first governor of Puerto Rico. He was born in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain in 1474.

Vasco Nunez de Balboa

Apr 9, 1475

Vasco Núñez de Balboa was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World.

Francisco Pizarro

Mar 16, 1478

Francisco Pizarro González was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of Peru. Born in Trujillo, Spain to a poor family, Pizarro chose to pursue fortune and adventure in the New World.

Ferdinand Magellan

Feb 3, 1480

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who organised the Spanish expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, which was completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano.

Giovanni de Varrazano

May 26, 1485

Giovanni da Verrazzano was a Florentine explorer of North America, in the service of King Francis I of France. He is renowned as the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between Florida and New Brunswick in 1524, including New York Bay and Narragansett Bay.

Hernan Cortes

Jul 13, 1485

Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century.

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

Apr 18, 1490

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a Spanish explorer of the New World, and one of four survivors of the 1527 Narváez expedition.

Jacques Cartier

Dec 23, 1491

acques Cartier was a French-Breton explorer who claimed what is now Canada for France. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint

Juan Cabrillo

Mar 13, 1499

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo was an Iberian maritime explorer best known for investigations of the West Coast of North America, undertaken on behalf of the Spanish Empire. He was the first European to explore present-day California, navigating along the coast of California in 1542–1543.

Hernando de Soto

May 26, 1500

Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula, and played an important role in Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, but is best known for leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States. He is the first European documented as having crossed the Mississippi River.[5]

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado

Apr 27, 1510

Francisco Vázquez de Coronado y Luján was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who led a large expedition from Mexico to present-day Kansas through parts of the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542.

Vasco Da Gama

Dec 24, 1524

Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira, was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and therefore, the West and the Orient.

Henry Hudson

Mar 16, 1565

Henry Hudson was an English sea explorer and navigator during the early 17th century, best known for his explorations of present-day Canada and parts of the northeastern United States.

Jacques Marquette

Jun 1, 1637

Jacques Marquette S.J., sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French-American Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste. Marie, and later founded St. Ignace, Michigan.

Robert Cavelier de La Salle

Nov 22, 1643

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle was a 17th-century French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Louis Joliet

Sep 21, 1645

Louis Jolliet was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. Jolliet and Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette, a Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore and map the Mississippi River in 1673

Leif Erinkson

Oct 27, 1911

Erickson was born in Alameda, California, near San Francisco. He worked as a soloist in a band as vocalist and trombone player, performed in Max Reinhardt's productions, and then gained a small amount of stage experience in a comedy vaudeville act. Initially billed by Paramount Pictures as Glenn Erickson, he began his screen career as a leading man in Westerns.