Manila: Did you mean...?

Macao (Macau) is located on a peninsula in the estuary of the Pearl River delta in southeast China and it was a Portuguese colonial settlement from c. 1557 until 1999. Macao was a major trade hub of the Portuguese Empire and with...

Cochineal is a brilliant red dye extracted from the crushed bodies of parasitic insects which prey on cacti in the warmer parts of the Americas. The dye was an important part of trade in ancient Mesoamerica and South America and throughout...

Juan de Grijalva (aka Grijalba, 1489-1527) was a Spanish conquistador who explored the eastern coast of Mexico in 1518. His notable achievements included a demonstration that the Yucatán Peninsula was just that and not, as previously...

17th-century Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) navigators were the first Europeans to set foot on Australian soil. Although there is a strong theory that the Portuguese explorer...

The English mariner, privateer, and explorer Francis Drake (c. 1540-1596 CE) made his circumnavigation of the world between 1577 and 1580 CE. Only the second to achieve this feat after the expedition of...

The French exploration of New Zealand has been overshadowed by the achievements of British navigator Captain James Cook (1728-1779), but French navigators who visited Aotearoa's (New Zealand) shores named over...

Professor Emeritus David Gitlitz is one of the world’s leading experts on Jewish-Catholic interactions in Iberia and the Americas. While initially drawn to the literature...

A detail of a 17th-century painting by Cornelis Verbeeck showing a Spanish galleon firing its cannons. In the complete painting, the ship is in combat with a Dutch vessel c. 1618 in an unknown location. (National Gallery...

A 1734 copper print of a Spanish galleon. The text reads: Por Golfos mas procelosos, con valor, aresto y zelo, hace gala de Neptuno, esta Nave con su vuelo. - "Through the worst stormy waters, with courage, purpose, and zeal...

Kiyomizu-dera, otherwise known as the ‘Temple of the Pure Water Spring’, is a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. Founded in 778 CE, the Koyasu pagoda was built in the early 17th century CE.