Panama: Did you mean...?

The sea dogs, as they were disparagingly called by the Spanish authorities, were privateers who, with the consent and sometimes financial support of Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603 CE), attacked and...

Piracy has involved many nationalities over the centuries, but one of the prominent groups in the medieval and early modern periods was the French pirates, who terrorised the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean...

A detail of an 18th-century oil painting by Samuel Scott showing the British attack on Portobelo in November 1739 by Admiral Vernon. Portobelo, now in Panama, was a major port on the Spanish Main and a collection...

The Capture of Puerto Bello, 21 November 1739, oil on canvas by Samuel Scott, 1740. Scott's painting depicts the capture of the Spanish port of Portobelo by a British fleet on 21 November 1739 during the War of Jenkins' Ear...

The European colonization of the Americas was the process by which European settlers populated the regions of North, Central, South America, and the islands of the Caribbean. It is also recognized as the direct...

Ferdinand Magellan, or Fernão de Magalhães (c. 1480-1521), was a Portuguese mariner whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1519-22 in the service of Spain. Magellan was killed on the voyage in what is...

Elizabeth I reigned as queen of England from 1558 to 1603. Her 44-year reign was so long and packed with momentous events that the second half of the 16th century is now known as the Elizabethan era and still regarded as...

The Spanish galleon (Spanish: galeón, nao, or navío) was a particularly large type of galleon used for both carrying cargo and as a warship armed with up to 60 cannons. Used from the mid-16th century until the early 19th century...

Atahualpa (Atawallpa) was the last ruler of the Inca Empire. He reigned from 1532 until his capture and execution by the invading Spanish forces led by Francisco Pizarro in 1533. The troubled Incas had suffered...

The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492 to c. 1580) is an account written in 1568 of the early Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica, specifically the conquest of the Aztec civilization in Mexico from...